Page 41 of A Little Campfire Blues

Mackenzie

We arranged Ezzy and Axis in between us so they could cuddle, with Roman snuggled up behind Ezzy while I held Axis, who gave me the same confused look when I went to hold him as he’d given me when I’d moved to tend to his hair. For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out what I’d done to cause it, but I was sure as fuck going to find a way to fix it. With Madagascar on the television and Axis stroking his cheek and hair, Ezzy had succumbed to the pull of sleep first with Roman drifting off soon afterwards.

Even after he was out, Axis kept stroking Ezzy’s cheek, occasionally moving down to his arm or fussing with the blankets, pulling them up around him.

“You’re gonna wake him if you keep that up,” I whispered as I stroked his hair back from his ear.

His hand fluttered, then finally went still, resting on Ezzy’s hip.

“Did I do something to upset you?” I asked, deciding to go for bluntness and hope he was willing to talk to me.

“No.”

“Then why have you been pulling away from me?”

“I haven’t.”

“Don’t bullshit a bullshitter, kid; I can tell when something is wrong. You didn’t even want me to dry your hair tonight.”

“Wasn’t that I didn’t want you to; I just didn’t need you to when I could do it myself.” He replied. “There was no need for you to make a fuss over me.”

“Why not?”

“’Cause I was fine. The storm didn’t bother me any.”

“Maybe it bothered me, knowing you were out there running around alone trying to find Roman.”

“Who didn’t need any help at all,” he muttered. “Guess it was kinda dumb.”

“No, it wasn’t. What if hehadneeded help? You did what I wanted to do; only you took the choice out of my hands when you tore off like that.”

“Ezzy needed you.”

“Yeah, he did; you’re right about that,” I replied. “But it’s okay to need me too, I hope you know that.”

His silence said more than any bullshit answer he might have tried to concoct.

“Only you don’t, do you?”

“I’ve needed a lot of things I’ve never gotten,” he admitted, much to my surprise.

“So you learned how to stop wanting them.”

“Pretty much.”

Sighing, I pressed my nose to his hair and inhaled the scent of rainwater still clinging to it. “I hope that in time you’ll let me change that.”

Again he said nothing.

“Uh-huh, still wanna stick to your story about nothing being wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong,” he insisted. “I just don’t want to get too used to this, or you, knowing that in a little over a week, we go back to reality.”

“And what, exactly, is reality as you see it?”

Now he sighed and leaned away from me to press his forehead against Ezzy’s. “They’re going home together, and I’m going back to Portland. You guys have real jobs with time constraints. When it comes down to it, it’ll make far more sense for you to visit them or for them to visit you when you’ve got time freed up.”

“And you can’t join us?”

---