Page 78 of Surviving the Merge
“How much do you know?” I asked.
“The last full memory I have is getting out of the cab at Elite. Other than that, there’s a few images that came through here and there. Enough for me to fill in the blanks.”
“He needed you, and you weren’t there.” I didn’t say it accusingly; I merely wanted to know if he had a choice in the matter.
“That part is news to me. I didn’t feel anything.”
“I’m too tired to try and figure out what that means.” Fetching his good hand, I said, “I need you.”
Instead of removing his bottoms like he normally would after such a request, he sat next to me, bringing my hands to his lips. He looked depleted and resigned. And I refused to peer any deeper than that. I didn’t want to handle the truth. “Blake,” I whispered, gazing up at the ceiling.Don’t leave…
“Lay with me,” he said, stretching himself out. “I’ll hold you until you fall back to sleep.”
That wasn’t why I spoke his name. I wouldn’t cry. I’d cried enough for one night. I swallowed hard and nodded, crawling onto him until I rested on his chest.
He sighed, “I love you, Justin.”
His steady heartbeat lured me to sleep.
21
Iwoke up on the couch with a stiff neck and Blake staring out the window into the morning fog.
He looked my way briefly before focusing once again on the mist. “Something within my body feels different.Ifeel different. I can’t put a name to that difference, though. It’s too unfamiliar.”
Damon, not Blake. The two were starting to become so similar, I was losing track of who was who. His eyes flared with alarm when I stood, heading for him. Then I remembered him wanting to be alone last night, and his shouted words to me in the car: “Don’t touch me.”
“Damon, why won’t you let me near you?” I asked, approaching him cautiously.
“Because the feeling intensifies when you’re close. I don’t like it.” he snapped.
I stopped moving any closer. Instead, I reached out to put my hand on his shoulder. He tensed up. I pulled away. “Do you remember everything from last night?”
“It’s kind of hard to forget with this throbbing pain in my hand—” He paused. Unwilling to look at me, he asked, “Did I hurt you?”
“Not in the way you think. I can’t help but to hurt when I see you hurt, Damon.”
“Goddamn it,” he muttered, wincing after he attempted to run his injured hand through his hair. Going into the kitchen to retrieve the painkillers from the cabinet over the sink, I walked them over to him, asking him to explain how he was feeling.
“I’m angry, no surprise there. It’s not the sharpness that I usually thrive off of, though. There’s heaviness to this anger. Like the weight of it is too much to bear. I feel like I’m being pulled under... something, somehow. Fuck!” He threw his hands in the air.
I ventured a guess. Damon’s default setting was mild annoyance if not outright anger. He was sensitive, and so his feelings got hurt often, and he had an aptitude for self-pity. But those small flickers of emotions played the background to his anger.
“Is it sadness?” I asked.
He thought about it for a while.
“You’ve felt that before, haven’t you?”
“Sadness,” he said as if he was tasting the word. Seeing how it felt on his tongue. “A long, long time ago. In the back of a dark, small closet.” Swallowing two pills dry, he confirmed, “Yeah, this may be that. It’s been so long, though. How can I be sure?”
“Do you want to see if Julie can squeeze us in today? I don’t have to be back in Chadwick until tomorrow.”
He pressed his forehead against the window. “No. Not today.”
“I’m giving up the apartment.” I was willing to try anything to perk him up.
“Is that so?” He turned and stalked toward me.
