Page 23 of Raise Up, Heart
Damon swallows. “It’s a perfectly good sandwich and you’re wasting it.”
Cole shifts closer to Damon so that his hip presses against Damon’s, the soft sweatpants warm against his leg, and he manages about four bites before he’s unable to force another.
Damon looks at the sandwich and then at Cole. “You need to eat, even if you don’t feel like it.”
“Is that a medical opinion, Dr. Black?” Cole tests it out. Is this okay? Can he do this? He lets the name roll off his tongue. He hasn’t said it in a long time. It feels good.
“No,sweetheart,” Damon returns. “It’s this little thing most idiots call common sense. Though, given your behavior on the road the other night, I’m thinking that particular evolutionary advantage skipped you entirely.”
“It was stupid,” Cole says.
“Damn straight,” Damon agrees.
Though if he hadn’t been walking on the side of the road, tempting fate to do him in, then he wouldn’t be here with Damon now. He knows this. And he won’t regret it.
“I’m not sorry.”
“I didn’t ask you to be,” Damon says, taking another bite of his sandwich. He chews, sighs and swallows as he looks up to the ceiling. “Ah, all of thisdramahas worn me out. I say we eat and then go to sleep. There’ll be time for more of this tomorrow.”
Cole doesn’t want to sleep. He doesn’teverwant to sleep. In fact, the thought threads his veins with ice-cold terror. He can’t risk that he’ll wake up in his bed, or in the hospital, and find that all of this is a fever dream or the result of the head trauma. He knows it’s irrational, but his current plan is to stay awake for the rest of his life; he’s not sleeping ever again.
Damon has finished his sandwich, and Cole can’t believe it, but he says, “Well, if you’re not going to eat it—” and he takes the sandwich from Cole’s plate, taking a massive bite out of the side.
“You’re ridiculous,” Cole says, and he feels like he might start laughing again. The swings in his emotions are wearing him out, it’s true, but sleep is not even an option.
“It takes a lot of energy to keep this up,” Damon says, motioning to his body.
“You mean—” Cole’s stomach tenses, and he feels like he might throw up what little he’s managed to consume. “You’re stilldoing it?”
“Doing what?” Damon asks.
“You know, still keeping Alex away? Is he…in there?” Cole doesn’t know what he’ll do if Damon suddenly starts to…turn back. He feels like he might crawl out of his skin just thinking of it.
“I was referring to my impeccable physique,” Damon says, but it’s clear that he knows it’s not at all funny. “No. I don’t have to fight for this body anymore,” Damon says. “I won.”
“So, you’re saying, Alex is totally gone? There’s nothing left?”
Damon shrugs. He looks stressed, confused, but he just sighs. He puts Cole’s sandwich aside, and gets out of the bed, a rush of cold air sweeping over Cole’s torso as he does. He runs a hand through his hair before picking up the plates to return them to the kitchen. “No, there’s almost nothing. I don’t feel him at all.”
“Wow,” Cole says, and if he’s honest, he has to admit that he’s scared. It’s hard not to think of what Alex must have gone through. He watches Damon put the plates in the small sink under the window. He moves like Damon; there’s not a hint of Alex. Cole swallows at Damon walking back with his fluid gait. “So, there’s nothing left of him at all.”
Damon stands next to the bed. He doesn’t climb in. He’s studying Cole, and Cole knows that he senses Cole’s fear. “There are some journals that he kept,” he says. “He may have just been a nurse practitioner, but there was some part of him that understood this transformation was of scientific interest, even if it is impossible.” Damon shrugs. “Or maybe he was just trying to understand what was happening to him. Whatever; he kept a record.”
Cole can feel how Damon is pulling away from him emotionally. Damon’s face goes nearly clinical at Cole’s next words. “Show me. I want to see them.”
“All right.” There’s a small table on the other side of the room, stacked with papers and a few composition books. Damon picks the black and white books up, so familiar to Cole from high school and college, and brings them over to the bed. He tosses them down beside Cole and says, “That’s all there is. Have at it.”
Cole says, “Don’t be mad.”
Damon uncrosses his arms and drops down on the bed next to Cole. “I’m not. If anything, I guess this emotion is fear.”
Cole touches Damon’s bare arm, rubbing at the chill bumps, and he says, “What are you afraid of?”
“Are you serious?” Damon asks. He’s tense, and he motions at the books. “Those journals…they tell you everything. It’s clear what I did to him. I’m a doctor. I’ve seen a lot of horrific things in my life, and what those journals… Look, it’s beyond understanding, Cole.”
“You think I’ll leave you now? After I just got you back? Over what’s in these journals? You don’t know me at all, if you think that.”
“You haven’t read them yet. It’s easy enough to say when you don’t know.” Damon pinches the bridge of his nose and waves toward the composition books. “Just…read them. You should know the truth. This is why I never came to you before. Why I shouldn’t have come to you now.”
