Page 38 of Seeing Grayscale

Exiting the clinic while sniffling is never a good look, but Hunter doesn’t ask about what happened or why I’m upset—thank fuck. It’s been a long time since I’ve heard my dad’s name or even talked about my parents. I’m homesick for a place I haven’t stepped foot in since I was twelve.

Even so, I’m determined more than ever to go back.

I don’t need anyone to understand my attachment to my hometown. I just need to be there.

I need that familiarity when everything else is so uncertain.

Within my life’s obscurity is security. I know the shadows and curves ofmyworld like I do my own body. It’s the only thing I need right now so I don’t completely break.

EIGHTEEN

“Areyousure?”

Hunter and I are gathering my things at his family’s summer house. I’m surprised he hasn’t fought me since our verbal scrap back at the clinic. The drive back here was tense, but neither of us seemed willing to ease it. And now, with everything I’m willing to take in a duffle bag and his worried stare, that energy is worse.

He looks…miserable.

“I’m sure,” I say.

“You don’t have to leave this stuff,” he gestures to the small pile on the couch, “it’s yours.”

I don’t need a week’s worth of outfits. It’ll only weigh down the bag and give people a reason to come sniffing. However, leaving behind most of the toiletries he got for me is painful. I’ll miss having my soaps. After what happened last time, I realized I had something worth taking and won’t risk it again. Those fuckers don’t deserve nice soap.

“Carrying light is better.”

“What about at night?” There is that argument he’s been sitting on like a hen trying to hatch an egg. “What about if someone tries to…hurt you?” His eyes drag to my brace and the single crutch I’m leaning on.

“I’ll manage.”

Oh, he doesn’t like that. His hand flies to his hair andyanks on it.“Gray, forfuck’ssake. What does this prove? That you’re independent? You don’t need to prove that to me. I know you are. What kind of a person does that make me, though, if I take you back to that place?”

Place.

Like it’s a heaping pile of shit.

Like there’s nothing good worth wanting.

Like my home isn’t anything at all. “It makes you a man of your word. You said one night; it’s been one night.”

“I looked up the mortality rate of homeless men in your age group. That’s what I was doing while you were getting looked over,” he growls and steps closer, annihilating the distance with his long strides. “Do you know what those numbers are? Because I do, and I can’t stop seeing them. Three and a half times higher than ahousedperson.”

I rub my face, wanting to just put him out of his misery and get on with it. “I’m not staying with you. We can go around and around the same points and the same facts, and it won’t change.Ican’tstay with you. Even if you were just some random rich guy and not the son of the fucking governor, I still would leave. It’s not who you are, Hunter. It’s what you represent. I’d rather have nothing at all than risk losing everything I never thought I’d have.”

That seems to have done the trick because he backs off, rips his pack of cigarettes out of his pocket, and stalks outside. I stand awkwardly in the living room, unsure if I’m supposed to follow him.

It’s like this guy isn’t used to being told no or, at the very least, being faced with hard truths. He knows he can’t make this work long-term, and I wouldn’t expect him to.

He can't fix what he never broke.

I haven’t had an ID in three years because someone stole my wallet. Since my parents’ belongings got sold and CPS lost the important paperwork like my birth certificate and social security card in some ‘unfortunate filing mishap', I can’t prove who I am, and my folks died before I could memorize their birth years. Every tool needed to get me out of the gutter is placed so high above my head that I’ll never reach it.

Hunter doesn’t get that—someone like him never will, either.

As if to remind me, my eyes snag on the electric fireplace mantel. In one of those expensive picture frames is his family photo. Hunter was a teenager in it, with a smooth face and jaw and a bit of baby fat on his cheeks, making his dimples appear deeper.

But the smile is fake.

His parents’ are faker, and it’s all one gilded fucking cage that he’ll never escape from. I don’t belong here…with him.

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