Page 67 of Silent Is The Heart

“I know. I know, but this…changes everything. I…I don’t know what to do. I wish he’d just go to the police. I don’t understand why he didn’t. Or maybe I understand why he didn’tthen, but now—” he rambles. “I’m sorry. I know this all sounds so…”

My patience is gone. I can’t hold back my frustration any longer.

“Like an episode ofDateline?”

Gripping his hair again, he lets out a delirious laugh. “Maybe.”

Is he not hearing the alarm bells that I am? Fucking Aaron—why does he have to be so understanding to everyone about everything? If I have to lose him to another man, fine. I’ll freaking deal with it and not lose my shit like last time, but not tothisman. Anyone but this man.

“Aaron, he faked his death, shows up two years later, and wants you to move to another country with him under an alias. There’s nomaybeabout it. I don’t trust the guy. Why all of a sudden? Why now?”

“He said it wasn’t safe for either of us,” he babbles, looking even more lost, like just having the conversation is taking a toll on him.

No shit, it wasn’t safe. There’s nothing safe about Jason.

“And me? Does he know about me?”

Some of the color returns to his cheeks and he looks away. What the hell is that about?

“He knows I’m seeing someone.”

I remember the creepy gleam in Jason’s eyes when he said, “I don’t want to interrupt anything.” It felt like half dare, half threat. What married man would leave his husband alone in a room with someone his husband has been seeing? Nothing about what this fuck-stick is up to makes any sense. All I have to go on is what Aaron is telling me. Maybe I’m asking the wrong questions.

“Are you…still seeing someone?” I ask with my heart in my throat.

“I want to,” he replies with tears in his eyes, and then he adds an awful word to that sentence, “but…”

Three letters just killed me. Jason’s corpse has been traded with mine. He wants to see me,but…he won’t.

“I have to figure this out first,” he whispers.

I nod because what else can I do? There’s nothing formeto figure out. I’m not a husband. I’m just a boyfriend… or was. Everything about me has been reduced to three-letter words.

“I’m so sorry, Easton. I know I can’t ask you to wait for me, but…”

Maybe it’s the evident remorse pouring off him, or how he looks as heartbroken as I feel. Maybe it’s that this time the word‘but’offers me hope.

Pulling him toward me, I wrap my arms around him. He hugs me back, but the embrace is weak and awkward, not nearly as comforting as either of us needs right now. It’s not like our hugs that make me feel as though we’re two halves completing a whole. There’s an invisible canyon wedged between us, and it has Jason Reider’s name on it.

Did Jason hug him? God, I can’t even stand the thought of Aaron being in the same room as that man. Something foreboding tells me the longer he’s around him, the more likely he’ll be to slip through my hands.

“If you need me here for moral support when he comes back, just let me know.”

“Thank you,” he mumbles into my shoulder. “But it’s probably better that you aren’t. You’ve done so much for me already, and I think it would just make things more difficult.”

Difficult how? Difficult to say goodbye to me? Or difficult for Jason? If it’s the latter, I have no fucking problem hanging around to make him uncomfortable.

“Why don’t we eat?” he says, trying to sound optimistic, but it’s wasted because I can feel him trembling. “I saw you tried spoiling me again.”

If the reminder of our normalcy brings him comfort now, I’ll attempt it. I follow him to the kitchen after we gatherup the now-cold Chinese food I brought over. It seems like a saving grace if he’s asking me to stay for dinner, but after we set out our food and sit down, nothing feels salvaged. We eat in silence. At one point, he reaches out and holds my hand, rubbing the top of it anxiously with his thumb.

When I first started sketching years ago, I used to press too hard on the paper. It was a rookie mistake. No matter how much I tried to erase my errors, I could still see the marks from my pencil. Picking at my food, feeling that pitying stroke on my hand, I feel like one of those failed sketches. Kind words, good intentions—no matter what Aaron said, it feels like I’m no longer in the picture.

CHAPTER 33

Aaron

It’s only been two days since I last saw Easton, but it seems like an eternity. I thought, for sure, Jason would show up last night, but I waited on pins and needles. The house was so silent and it felt like the apocalypse was coming, but then nothing. I finally fell asleep in the wee hours of the morning, exhausted from being on edge for so long.

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