Page 52 of Fear
“Yeah,” he said, trying to sound enthusiastic and failing grandly, “that sounds great.”
Making the pasta with Tobias was as good and horrible as Jake had suspected. It was an easy meal—boil spaghetti, heat a jar of pasta sauce, zap vegetables in the microwave—but every time he turned around, Tobias was there, looking up at him, smiling, his body and hands too close. His expression was still this side of afraid, inches away from the panic Jake had seen again and again. Panic Jake had caused because he couldn’t make good choices or keep his hands to himself.
Jake filled the pot and cracked the spaghetti in half, got a bag of peas out of the freezer, and couldn’t think of anything to say, even when Tobias’s eyes followed him and he wanted to smile, wanted to talk about some random tangent. But what was the point? Anything he talked about could turn into something that would rip Tobias apart. So he kept silent and ignored the way Tobias opened his mouth sometimes, as though he wanted to talk but couldn’t. Or maybe he just saw the same problem, had nothing to say to Jake, didn’t know how to fix it.
Jake was pretty sure that was his fault too. A tightness grew in his chest with the conviction that he was only making all this worse, along with a deep, slow self-revulsion every time he caught himself watching Tobias’s hand while he stirred the spaghetti ever so carefully, or when he reached over to help Tobias open the jar. Tobias’s hands shook a little, but whether from sickness or fear, Jake couldn’t tell. When their hands brushed together, Jake couldn’t help feeling how Tobias’s fingers twitched under his, the soft heat of his body.
That was enough. Too much. Jake jerked away from him, emptied the jar into a saucepan and set the burner on low. The pasta was done, but he couldn’t stay until everything else was ready. He couldn’t sit down to a meal with Tobias right now with this shit in his head.
Jake dumped the pasta and boiling water in the strainer and tried to bolt out of the kitchen, but Tobias was there, Tobias was right there, and Jake couldn’t be in the same room any longer.
“I’m gonna shower,” Jake said in a rush. “Back in ten. Can you watch the sauce and maybe zap the peas?”
If anything, Tobias’s face got paler, but Jake didn’t know if it was from the suggestion that he microwave something by himself or because he’d been standing for too long. “Yes, Jake.”
“Yeah. Good, I’ll . . . I’ll be back.” Jake almost touched Tobias’s face before he left. His hand rose halfway. But he caught himself and rushed out of the kitchen.
He showered. Technically. He turned the water as hot as he could stand, bracing himself against the tile wall. He had to start giving Tobias more space. Maybe he should get a fucking civilian job.
Jake stepped out of the shower feeling almost worse than when he had gotten in, scrubbed at his face hard with the towel, and dressed. They needed to eat, though even the thought of food was like lead shot in his stomach. He couldn’t let his own weakness, inadequacy, and lack of self-control hurt Tobias. At least, no more than it already had.
Jake was holding it together. He wasn’t happy—about as far from it as a man could get short of being splayed out on the floor bleeding—but he was still moving.
Then he walked into the kitchen, water droplets still trickling down his neck, and found Tobias on his hands and knees, carefully picking frozen peas off the tiles. He had a bowl cradled in his arms—like a woman might hold a baby who could start crying any second—and, one by one, dropped the peas in the bowl.
Jake’s first reaction was a kind of sick amusement and relief that it hadn’t been the bubbling sauce or the steaming pasta. He didn’t really like peas, but he had a vague idea that they were good for something health-wise and therefore Tobias could probably use as many as he could get. But if they didn’t make it to the dinner table, no harm no foul. At least Jake could still get some carbs into him.
Then Tobias glanced up and turned as pale as the white porcelain bowl. He dropped his eyes and carefully set the bowl down on the floor. From the doorway, Jake could see his hands shaking enough that the peas jumped around in the bowl, threatening to leap over the rim.
Amusement and apathy instantly transformed into a furious fire in his stomach. Jake didn’t know what this was, what the fuck this was again, but he couldn’t deal with it. He didn’t want to face this fucking thing again. The cowardly, honest, angry, hurt part of him—the voice that hissed that Tobias had never actually liked him or thought he was any kind of friend, that Jake had just been the best option in the sea of sadistic bastards—wanted to turn back around and slam the door on his bedroom. Who gave a damn if Tobias crumpled in on himself, blank-faced, hopeless, purposeless? Who gave a fuck if Tobias had issues that Jake hadn’t even dreamed existed, and he might do anything—including hurt himself—if Jake wasn’t there?
Jake didn’t want to care. He didn’t want to be the only one dealing with all this shit that had been his only hope for a real purpose, something that was worth losing his father. Tobias had no one but him, and he had fucking no one else either. Even now, Dad, I fucking wish you would come home someday, like you used to. You always found me eventually.
Jake didn’t move past the kitchen doorway. Maybe this was why Tobias wouldn’t look at him or anybody. Maybe this hopelessness, the understanding that nothing would change and nothing could get better, was what he lived with every day.
“What are you doing?” Jake asked, even though he didn’t fucking want to know. He stared at the refrigerator and waited for it. Go ahead, he thought, angry and ashamed of himself for being angry at Tobias, for Christ’s sake. Go ahead, kick me in the teeth.
“I’m sorry,” Tobias whispered. “I was p-putting the peas in the bowl, for the m-microwave, like you told me, exactly like you told me, but m-my hand—I’m so clumsy, I’m stupid, but I can do better, I promise I can do better, Jake, I j-j-just . . . They fell, but I’m p-picking them up. I’m n-n-not wasting—”
Jake’s head snapped down. “You think I wanted you to cook food after it fell on the floor?”
He added himself to the long list of things that he hated when Tobias flinched away from the question like he’d been hit.
Tobias looked back up in horror, shaking his head. “Not you, I would n-never give you . . . I’m s-sorry, no, I would never. I just thought that maybe I . . . maybe you would let me . . .” His hands fluttered over the bowl, unsure where they could land, and Tobias looked anywhere but at Jake, distress pouring off him.
He wouldn’t ever give Jake food that had been on the floor, food that was less than perfect, but he hadn’t expected anything better. He never fucking expected Jake to give him anything decent.
Jake walked slowly into the kitchen, and Tobias slid onto his hands and knees, head down, tension in his back palpable. Jake hadn’t seen that posture in days, maybe a week, but it still made nausea rise in his throat and his hand clench.
Other days, Jake would have crouched beside Tobias, like vague memories of how his mother had reached for him. He would have told him it was all right, would have explained again how Tobias could eat any fucking thing he wanted, how Jake would never do that to him. How Jake wasn’t fucking much but he was better than the sorry excuses for human beings that had fucked up Tobias’s life so much.
Right now, Jake couldn’t do it. Couldn’t scrape up the energy or push past the hatred and self-loathing to try to make Tobias feel better, because it wouldn’t fucking work. It never fucking worked.
Goddamn, some days Jake wondered what the fuck Tobias would do if he really did slug him, if he just gave him one solid hit across the jaw that carried all Jake’s anger, sadness, and horror. What the fuck would Tobias do if Jake started doing every goddamned thing that Tobias expected of him? If Jake made him live off his leftovers or hit him when life wasn’t going his way, when he was tired, or just because he wanted to? What the fuck would you do then, Tobias? Jake wondered, staring down at him.
He didn’t say it out loud. He had the sick suspicion that if he started doing all those things—became a fucking monster like the guards and hunters Tobias had known all his life—Tobias would trust him just as much. Maybe love him more.
He could imagine Tobias, pale and calm, eating nothing while Jake ate. He could see Tobias relaxing into the blows, no matter how violent, letting the force of Jake’s fists paint new bruises across his back and abdomen. No matter what Jake did to him, Tobias wouldn’t make a sound because he thought that was what Jake wanted.
