Page 4 of Back to You
Chapter 2
Iwas barely going through the motions of day-to-day life. I was on auto-pilot, except my particular pilot didn’t have the correct licenses and didn’t know what the fuck he was doing. I was about five seconds away from crashing into the nearest mountain. Lucky me.
I was officially dead-broke and broken, but the Fishers had welcomed me into their lives and into their home with open arms and god, I wastrying. I really was, for their sake and for mine. I forced myself to eat even though I wasn’t hungry. My smiles felt watered down, my laughter was canned, and keeping conversation going was exhausting. Sleep was my only reprieve from the pain. Sure, my arm hurt, but it was nothing in comparison to the ache in my soul.
I felt like I might never be whole again.
“Hey.” Dane dropped down onto the twin bed I’d claimed as mine. They didn’t have a guest room, so I was shacking up in his bedroom. It wouldn’t have been so bad if Dane wore more than just a pair of silk boxers to bed. It felt like the world was rubbing my nose in something I’d never have, and it sucked.
I offered a half-hearted smile. “Hey.”
“What’s up?” He bumped his shoulder against mine with a grin, his typical playful self. “Wanna game? I’m bored.”
“I dunno,” I mumbled. “I’m not really feeling it.”
“Hols.” He fixed me with a knowing look. “I know how hard it is to lose a parent, especially one you were so close with, but it’s been nearly a month and you haven’t so much as left the house. I know you’re grieving, but it’s not healthy to stew in your emotions all the time, you know? Your poor brain needs a break—and a couple rounds of old school Smash Bros, am I right? Get your mind off things for a little bit.”
I puffed out my cheeks. “It’s hard.”
“I know that, but right now, what you need is to kick your best friend’s ass at video games. You know you wanna.” He winked and nudged me with his elbow. When I didn’t smile, his blue eyes got big and watery, like he might start blinking out fake tears to get sympathy points. It’d work too. He knew me well. “Pretty please?”
I snorted and shoved up against him. “You’re a pain in my ass.”
“You love me,” he singsonged back and my heart stuttered in its lonely cage of bones. Oh, if he only knew the half of it… I shook my head. He began to laugh. “C’mon, Hols. Let’s start up a game of Melee and you can shock the fuck outta me with Pikachu. You know I’m good for it.”
“Fine,” I said. I’d never seen him shoot out of bed so fast in his life. He did a happy dance all the way over to the chipboard entertainment center, where his various video game consoles were set up.
After fiddling with the AV cables, he plugged the old controllers into a couple of cord extenders he’d gotten cheap off eBay, then flopped down on the bean-bag chair. He patted the seat next to him. With a soft groan, I joined him and he started up a stock game.
Sitting there, expertly pressing the button combinations on the controllers? It felt almost like old times, with Dane laughing and teasing me even as his character went flying off the stage, time and time again. For being a nerd, he was abysmally bad at Smash. I just happened to get lucky with this one, because normally he was the one kicking my ass.
“Aye-aye-aye,” he moaned when a bomb exploded and sent Captain Falcon careening through the sky. “You play dirty, boy. Bombs? Laser guns? What’s next?”
“Pokemon,” I replied nonchalantly. My character tossed out a red and white Pokeball onto the stage. A giant orange lizard with a flaming tail sent a spray of flames through the air and the game was over.Victory!I relaxed back into the pillowy embrace of the bean-bag and not-so-subtly stared at Dane, whose attention was fixed on the screen.
Unaware of his best friend creeping on him.
Sometimes I wished Dane wasn’t so damn sweet. He’d been nothing but understanding since the night he found me bleeding, even though I knew it had rattled him, but when he smiled at me with that boyish, pierced grin of his? Damn. It made it so hard to deal when all I wanted to do was climb into bed with him and let him hold me. My chest clenched up.
I yearned for that simple comfort, but in all honesty, I was terrified of ever letting my secret spill. My father’s drunken words still haunted me.Disgusting. No one will ever want you. You’re worthless, ain’t no son of mine. You might as well kill yourself. Do the world a favor.I held my breath. I could still hear his voice, as crystal clear as the day he spewed that venom.
I couldn’t help those niggling doubts at the back of my mind. What if Dane felt the same way? Would he recoil in disgust, tell me I was a freak? Would he be horrified that we’d been spending the night together since we were nine, that I’d seen him in his underwear? Would he think I was perving on him? Worse, what if he kicked me out? Right now, the Fishers were all I had. I couldn’t fuck this up.
Dane could never find out the truth.
“Better?” he asked me.
I forced a smile. “Yeah,” I lied. “Thanks, Dane.”
“Anytime, bro.”
* * *
It didn’t get better, though. Left to stew in my own mired thoughts, the pain blossomed out like blood from an ugly chest wound, ripping me open right down the middle. I felt sick whenever I forced myself to eat. I was losing weight, and sleep wasn’t even a reprieve anymore. I didn’t want to be here. I didn’t see the point.
It was Dane who broke that cycle. One morning, while I was picking at my now-cold bowl of oatmeal, he sat down across from me and clapped his hands down on the table so hard my spoon jumped against the china. I glanced up at him, startled. “What?”
“We’re going to support group,” he announced, matter-of-fact.
