Page 34 of Fear
“It’s just like the books,” Tobias whispered.
The only rough spot hit when Jake asked him how he was liking the day.
“I love it,” Tobias said. “I love being . . . here. With y-you. It’s s-so safe.”
Jake patted the Eldorado’s dash. “I love her too.” And I love being with you, Tobias. “Gas mileage sucks, but I wouldn’t trade her in for anything in the world. Dad—you know, it’s been in the family for a while. And it’s fucking awesome to know you can go anywhere and do anything whenever you want. You should’ve seen me before when I had to take the fucking bus home from hunts when D—Leon wasn’t around. It sucked. They give you such weird looks if you have any kind of blood spatter or monster goo on a bus. I had to make up a lot of shit about wild dogs and falling out of trees.” Then another idea struck, and Jake grinned at him. “Hey, you’re sixteen! That’s when kids get their licenses. I’ll teach you how to drive her.”
The offer didn’t get the reaction he’d hoped for. Tobias snapped his head around, eyes large and luminous with horror. His voice shook as badly as it had the night before when he said, “You—you don’t m-mean—your car—”
Jake made a sharp turn into an empty driveway, stopping crooked a few inches before the gray garage door, and had the engine shut off before Tobias could get out another choked word.
“Tobias.” Jake reached for Tobias’s hand, appalled that he had done something else to set him off. But this had to just be a misunderstanding. “Hey, it’s okay, there’s no rush, we’re not gonna tackle that today. I’m just saying—I’ll take you through the paces when you’re up for it. There’s not many I’d let behind the wheel, but I trust you.”
If anything, Tobias looked twice as upset, lifting his free hand up in a fist to his forehead and shaking his head rapidly. “Jake, no, no, I can’t—”
If Jake had thought Tobias was close to hyperventilating the night before, that was nothing compared to now, when Tobias was clearly, all too familiarly, on the edge of another panic attack. Quickly, Jake slid closer, taking a gentle hold of Tobias’s free hand and rubbing his back with his other hand.
“Tobias,” he said, repeating it a few more times, steady and soft, to make sure he was getting through. “Hey, it’s okay, I’m not going to make you do anything. You don’t have to drive until you want to. It’s fine, it’s fine, we’re okay.” A distant part of him was chilled at how routine this already was, how it was no longer surprising to have to pull Tobias back from a panic attack out of the blue.
Tobias calmed down gradually, taking deep breaths and resting—not grinding—his forehead in his palm, elbow braced on the door. His eyelashes were damp with tears. “You can’t,” he still whispered, and he sounded so broken that Jake swore he could feel his own heart crack. “You can’t t-trust m-me, please d-don’t do that.”
Jake didn’t say anything. He leaned in instead and tugged Toby to his side.
They sat for a while longer, Jake rubbing Tobias’s all-too-frail shoulders with the occasional “It’s okay” and “I’m here, you’re safe” and any other light, reassuring phrase that occurred to him. He waited until Tobias’s breathing had returned to normal before letting go of his hand and leaning back into his own seat.
“No driving,” Jake promised at last. He kept the not yet silent, and he reminded himself that the day had been going well until then, and Tobias seemed calm again, few traces of his panic left. So there was no reason to turn them back around to the apartment like he had been planning a second ago. In fact, Tobias looked more composed, maybe reassured by Jake’s hand on his back or his nonsensical but steady reassurances.
Jake had a sense that a storm had passed, leaving him unscathed. Or better put, he’d managed to fight his way to the eye and the calm. There was still chaos and misery and pain all around them, but here, in this quiet space, Tobias was watching him through his lashes and breathing easier, and Jake felt better for it. Only Tobias’s tight fist around the leg of his pants showed that he had even been stressed a second ago.
And shit, Tobias had done things like that even when Jake hadn’t known that he was falling apart, so being aware of the issue was better, right? Jake hoped so, though he wasn’t sure that he believed it completely.
He turned the key in the ignition again and the engine purred under his hands. But for a minute longer he stayed in the driveway of a house that wasn’t his, searching for a distraction for them both. Even a topic change would be nice, though he refused to switch to the weather. Though maybe the weather could give him some kind of out. It was fucking hot, so he turned the AC on full blast (Tobias jumped, but in the surprised-then-interested way that Jake wrote off as “that startled me but it’s fine now” and not “I’m scared out of my fucking mind”). Then Jake knew a surefire bet.
“What do you say we get some ice cream?” he asked, pulling out of the driveway. “We can cool down, get a little sugar in our veins. It’s even healthy for you, all that dairy.”
Tobias nodded. “A-anything you want, Jake.”
Jake glanced at him, ignoring the chill the words gave him. “You’ve never had ice cream before either, have you?”
“No.”
“Yup, didn’t think so. I was going to get you some in the park but . . . yeah. Well, delayed gratification is better than just leaving you hanging, right? And, seriously, dude, ice cream is the best.”
“Second best,” Tobias said. “After waffles.”
Jake turned his head sharply, about to gape, and then remembered he was driving, so he snapped back in time to swerve around some idiot practically driving in the middle of the road. But he’d needed to see how Tobias meant that. Then he had to get his heart under control, the beats coming far too irregularly because of that shy smile on Tobias’s face. Dammit if he wasn’t being teased.
“Exactly,” he said. “Damn, you’re smart.”
Tobias practically glowed.
Following that promising turn-around, they powered through a Dairy Queen drive-thru and finally got Tobias ice cream. They ate it in the car in a mall parking lot where they could watch people and, most importantly, Tobias wouldn’t have to deal with anything. If they couldn’t be safe within this steel frame and reinforced glass, Jake didn’t know that there was any place on earth that they could.
Tobias ate his sundae with infinite care, like something strange and far too wonderful would happen if he rushed through it. Watching him out of the corner of his eye, Jake felt a little bad that he had warned him about brain freeze, because it really wasn’t that much of an issue. But another part of him loved watching Tobias scoop up small bites of vanilla and fudge, savoring and swallowing with a look of complete bliss on his face.
It was great, yeah, and such a relief to have finally pulled something off right, to give Tobias something good without crashing and wiping out the rest of the day. Jake almost couldn’t believe it was possible to end on a good note. He found himself holding his breath at times as they headed west to explore the reservoirs and ranches west of Boulder city limits, bracing for the other shoe to fall . . . but it stayed okay. Better than okay. Tobias was smiling at him, shyly, but miles more relaxed than he’d been even that morning. When they got back to the apartment, Jake whipped together a quick meal of mac ’n’ cheese with hot dogs, and they played cards for the next couple of hours, until bedtime.
Monday, Jake decided to take on a different challenge. He didn’t ask Tobias to leave the house. They had a leisurely breakfast, Jake nudged Tobias toward the bookcase, and a minute later Tobias was curled up on the end of the sofa with the Norton anthology propped on his legs.
