Page 97 of Every Hidden Truth

He angled his head to the side, his teeth grinding as he met my gaze. “I’m angry.”

I dropped my gaze, the small sliver of annoyance giving way to guilt. “Sorry.”

“Stop—” He clenched his jaw shut as he took a deep breath, blowing it out between pursed lips as he fought for control. “Please, stop apologizing.”

“Okay.”

He was the one who wanted to talk, but everything I said upset him. How was that fair?

Like my responses mystified him, he stared at me in bafflement. After half a beat, something clicked in his eyes, and he grimaced. “I’m not angry withyou, you idiot!”

“Then why are you yelling at me?”

“I’m not—”

He scrambled from the bed, thrusting his hands into his messy blond curls as his chest heaved with emotion. He visibly trembled, and I sat up, wrapping the blanket around my shoulders as I watched him warily.

Pacing before the bed, he tugged at his hair, his face wild and deranged before it solidified to petrifying ice. He spun with a roar and smashed his fist through the wall, plaster and drywall giving beneath the force. I scrambled back with a cry of alarm, his violence frightening me.

Gingerly, he removed his fist from the wall, leaving a gaping hole behind. As a strangled moan scraped his throat, hisfury dissolved into anguish. Burying his face in his hands, he collapsed to his knees as his shoulders shook.

He was crying; Ben was crying.

His sorrow hit me like a freight train, shocking my system from its robotic slumber. I stumbled out of the bed, tripping over the carpet as I knelt before him. My eyes watered, and I threw myself at him, covering as much of his body with mine as I could manage.

Bawling like a baby, I held Ben’s quivering form. I didn’t know how to help him, so I simply held him as we wept.

We grieved the loss of something precious and innocent. We mourned the defiling theft of what was meant to be sacred. We had been robbed of something holy and irreplaceable, something that I wasn’t sure we could ever recover. The misery smothered us until I couldn’t breathe.

At long last, our tears finally dried, and a somber silence settled around us. Gently retrieving Ben’s damaged hand, I utilized my best doctoring skills and deduced it most likely wasn’t broken, though he winced as I conducted my investigation. Maybe a knuckle or two were cracked, but he didn’t seem too concerned.

Helping him to his feet, I led him to the bathroom, and he followed like a docile child. I cleaned the blood from his tattered flesh. The water in the sink ran red before turning a rosy pink color. Ben barely flinched as the cool water cleansed his wound.

When his hand looked less like he had stuck it through a wood chipper, I splashed my face to wash away the dried salt on my cheeks. Ben copied me, then dragged me back to his bed.

We crawled under the blankets in our shirts and boxers, and he finagled me the way he wanted until we faced each other on our sides. Our legs tangled, noses almost touching. He surrounded my body with his arms, hands pressing to my spine as I curled my arms between our chests.

I didn’t feel better—better was still a long way off—but I felt different. I was no longer numb, but I wasn’t drowning either, which was an improvement of sorts.

“Don’t give up on me, Silas,” Ben whispered, his lips too close, yet not close enough. “I’m not giving up on you, so don’t you dare give up on me. I love you, okay? I love you.”

Our foreheads met, and I trembled at the intensity in his eyes.

“I love you too,” I said, hoping with every fiber of my being that it wasn’t a lie.

Because I did love him. I did! But in the deepest, darkest parts of my soul, I hated him too. He may not have put a gun to my head, but he had still forced my hand. Or maybe I just needed someone to blame.

Even as we clung to each other, entwined in every physical way possible, I still felt the space growing between us. We were two buoys drifting in a vast ocean. Where we had once been tethered, we were now detached, left to the will of the tide as we floated farther and farther apart.

Lost in an unforgiving sea, we swam toward each other but could never close the distance. The waves pushed us apart, beating against our determination until Ben was nothing but a speck on the horizon, screaming my name.

At some point, I stopped fighting the angry sea. What was the point? We were both sinking, and I didn’t think it was possible for us to save each other this time.

After all, a drowning man was impossible to rescue. He always took someone down with him.

The only question remaining: was I the drowning man or was Ben? And which one of us would be dragged beneath the surface to suffocate under the flood?

Boiling Gray Clouds

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