Page 74 of Only the Small Bones
No, he couldn’t possibly know, because I hadn’t told him. It was on the tip of my tongue to say it. To put myself out of my own misery by getting it over with. I wasn’t ready, though. Not quite yet.
“Your eyes are red,” I noted. So were mine. “Were you up all night?”
He nodded once.
“So was I.” The next logical question would’ve been to ask why he hadn’t gotten any sleep. That ran the risk of me hearingsomething I might not have been ready to, though. Instead, I told myself his behavior came down to a lack of sleep and maybe hunger.
“Have you eaten today?”
Ryan shook his head, biting down on the corner of his lip.
“Neither have I,” I rasped, pain spreading everywhere. I took the few strides needed to enter the kitchen. “I ordered lasagna from this great Italian restaurant close by.” Slipping on the oven mitts, I lowered the oven door and withdrew the pan, setting it on top of the stove.
Gaining a bit of distance from him didn’t help. I could feel his turmoil and confusion. I felt it even more when he stepped into the kitchen with me.
With my back to him, I took a few deep breaths, removing the mittens and focusing on the music playing softly overhead. I looked back at him, expecting to find his gaze on me, expecting it to be full of all the negative emotions he’d fluctuated through since arriving here.
Ryan was staring at the small cake peeking out from behind one of the vases.
“Dessert,” I whispered. “It’s double chocolate fudge, your favorite. It’s the biggest one I could find.” I realized my error after he’d stormed off, much like the mistake I’d made with the chicken tenders and fries.
With a forearm pressed to the window, Ryan watched the whiteout developing outside. It felt like we were looking into a snow globe. Soon we’d be surrounded by white fog, sealing us in from outside distractions.
I entered the living room, turning the playlist off and plunging us into crippling silence.
“How’d your session with Dr. Shwartz go?” I felt faint, and it had nothing to do with hunger.
Ryan shook his head.
“You… You didn’t meet with her?”
He shook his head again.
“Did you meet with your tutor, then? Work out with Chef Shawn?”
Ryan didn’t answer, clearly not in the mood for small talk or a game of twenty-one questions. I asked another one anyway.
“What did you do all day?”And all night…
That particular question seemed to interest him. He straightened, slipping his hands into the pockets of his slacks before turning to me.
A candle wick popped, breaking up the heart-pounding silence of the room. The flame went out altogether, symbolic in a sense. The scent of acrid smoke drifted through the air while I waited for something I couldn’t have seen coming.
Where was his phone? I hadn’t seen it since he got here, and I hadn’t felt it on him when he’d pressed his body against mine. It must have been in his coat. I thought about getting it for him until I realized I didn’t have to. Ryan gave me the answer to my question without it.
“Prac… ticed,” he said in a voice that was deep but scratchy from disuse. “Prac… ticed,” he repeated. The word came out disjointed, as though he were having problems connecting the syllables, turning the single word into two. He brought a hand to his throat again, rubbing at it.
It felt like someone had wrapped a noose around my neck. I fought for every breath, each one reducing the amount of oxygen I had left.
Ryan stared at me like we were strangers, like I was a hazard to his existence. Heknew. He’d always known, and I’d been naive to believe otherwise.
“You ne… ver ask me things that mat… ter,” he said, still massaging his throat. His words flowed smoother when he spokeagain, only halting in one spot. “Not my last name, not my age, and noth… ing about my family.” He winced. “Why is that?”
I didn’t know whether to clutch my aching chest, or my throat where my own words felt stuck. “I-I didn’t want to—”
“Truth!” he shouted, grimacing with both hands at his neck now. He closed his eyes, slowly lowering his hands and breathing deeply. He seemed more confident in himself when he opened them again, his voice steady. “I don’t have any family. But you already knew that, didn’t you?”
It wasn’t a question. Not really. Everything he asked from that point on would be an accusation he already knew the answer to.
