Page 24 of A Cure for Recovery

Lawson sniffs, but his voice is clear when he says, “Yeah. Glad you were there.”

“Me, too.”

7

Bill’s alert, and seemingly in good spirits when they go in to visit him. He grips Tommy’s hand, tighter than normal, and thanks him, and Tommy’s face heats.

Lisa decides to stay the night.

Lawson and Tommy go home to pack a bag for her and pick up some dinner to take back to her that didn’t come out of the hospital cafeteria.

“Nothing like going through your mom’s underwear drawer,” Lawson says, making a face as he pulls out the top drawer on his mother’s dresser.

Tommy sits on the edge of the bed, beside the open overnight bag that already contains jeans, a blouse, and a light jacket. “Want me to do it?”

Lawson shakes his head. “I feel like that’s even creepier, ya know?”

“Hm.”

Lawson hesitates, shoulders around his ears, then darts a hand down into the drawer like a heron snatching a fish from a lake, spins, and tosses a scrap of white fabric into the bag with an overdramatic gag.

Tommy snorts, and then keeps snorting, until he’s outright laughing. “Oh my God, you shoulda let me do it. I wouldn’t have puked about it.”

“I didn’t puke.” He closes the drawer, shudders…and then leans back against the dresser, and folds his arms, and Tommy’s laughter dies away, because they were quiet on the ride home, but there’s an energy crackling between them of things unsaid.

Tommy braces himself for awe need to talk.

Instead, Lawson reaches out and kicks the toe of his shoe with his own, gaze on the carpet. “Hey,” he says, quietly.

“Hey,” Tommy says back, and taps his sneaker against Lawson’s. New step-in Sketchers against battered Vans.

“I’m glad it was you here instead of me,” Lawson says, shoulders tucking in, head still bent. His nose wriggles side-to-side,Bewitched-style, and Tommy would get caught up in how cute it is if he wasn’t worried that Lawson was trying not to cry. “I wouldn’t have – I would have panicked, and I’m – it’s good it was you. You knew just what to do.”

“You would have known what to do, too.” When Lawson shakes his head, Tommy insists, “You’ve been taking care of your dad for years. You always know what he needs.”

Lawson shakes his head again, and Tommy stands. There’s only a few feet between them – the length of both their legs stuck out – so he forgoes the cane, and closes the gap, and reaches up to take Lawson’s face gently between his hands. When he sweeps his thumbs beneath his eyes, they come away damp, and Tommy ducks down so he can peer up at his crumpled expression.

“I don’t wanna fight with you,” Lawson says, miserable.

Tommy blinks hard. “I don’t want to fight with you either. I…I’m gonna say ‘sorry,’ because I am, but I know that doesn’t fix anything, ‘cause I already said sorry, and then I acted like a total–”

Lawson moves all at once, lurches forward and wraps him up tight in both arms, and crushes all the air out of him.

Tommy slips both arms around his neck and crushes back.

Lawson takes a shuddering breath, and whispers, “I’m always so afraid you’ll wake up one day and realize you don’t want to stay.” He sniffs hard. “The house, and my parents, and – and my shitty job, and just…”

Tommy palms the back of his head and holds him down on his shoulder. “No, honey. No, no, no.”

“I don’t know if I can ever get a book published.” He sounds heartbreakingly young, and so much smaller than he is. “I don’t know if I can make things better for us, and I–”

Tommy turns his head, and presses his face into Lawson’s cheek. “Law. Lawson.” The helplessness that sweeps through him, burning in his eyes and tickling at his throat and squeezing his lungs, must be the sort that Lawson felt a couple nights ago, when Tommy was beside himself. Even as his heart breaks, he’s comforted by the knowledge that they’re both worried about making the other happy.

But at the same time, it’s ridiculous that they’ve taken happiness on as a chore and a challenge, one to be handled alone. They’re working so hard toward the same thing, and tripping each other up in the process.

He kisses Lawson’s cheek, and breathes against his ear, and says, “I love you. Do you know how much I love you?”

Lawson clings to him – and, after a beat, he nods.

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