Page 23 of Saving Sparrow
“Why are you here?” he asked in that dispassionate tone of his.
“I want him back.”
“You don’t deserve him.”
“I love him.”
“So you claim, yet here we are.”
My gaze moved to the scar along his hairline, unable to see it in the dark, even with the fire shedding light over us. “You’re right,” I said hoarsely.
Sparrow watched me intently before closing his eyes, the action lazy, seemingly unintentional.
“Why haven’t you been sleeping?” The pain he’d caused me hadn’t diminished my concern for him. My first instinct would always be to care for him, to protect him. Elliott didn’t function well without enough sleep. Was it the same for Sparrow? Elliott didn’t sleep well unless we were by his side. Was it the same for Sparrow? Even if on a subconscious level?
Sparrow’s eyes flicked open, a flash of anger drowning out the fatigue. “I’d worry about myself if I were you.”
“I’ll always worry about you,” I whispered. “Always.”
Sparrow wore an expression of unruffled calm, but his eyes would give him away every time. That spark of anger was still there, the blazing fire no match for it.
“Why did you fix the clock?”Was it because you’re sorry for what you did to me? Because Elliott still cares, forcing some part of you to care too?My heart ached to hear either of those reasons or some other variation of them.
“Who said it’s fixed?” Sparrow’s lips lifted into a cruel, mocking grin, making my pulse quicken. “Now, pick up where you left off, and leave nothing out.”
Miguel
Then
Every day for the last two weeks, Quentin and I picked our way through the woods in search of Elliott. He never came to our house on his own. He’d wait for us to find whatever patch of underbrush he’d sat on with his arms wrapped around his legs, and his face lifted to the sun.
We never got the impression that he intentionally waited there. He always seemed shocked that we’d come looking for him again, as though overnight we’d somehow realize he wasn’t worth the trouble.
We’d spend some time getting to know each other again because it always took a while for him to warm up to us after having spent a night apart. Then we’d metaphorically drag him inside.
Elliott was good at making us chase him, good at keeping us wanting more of him. Quentin blamed Elliott’s mysteriousness for our interest and curiosity. He wasn’t just a mystery to us, though; he was a mystery to himself as well. The difference was that Quentin and I wanted to solve it, whereas Elliott seemed content with not knowing all the parts of himself. He acted as if knowing was the thing to fear instead of it being the other way around.
We were sitting on my bedroom floor one afternoon when the loud thud of the book he was reading startled me out of my own reading zone.
The weight of his back lifted off mine, and we faced each other.
“I have to go,” he said.
“Why? You just got here.” Technically, we’d been reading for a few hours, but it hadn’t felt like it. The thin strap on the silk dress he wore slipped off his shoulder. Without thinking, I tugged it back into place. Elliott glanced down at the strap, then at my retreatinghand.
“I have an appointment to get to.” It wasn’t the first time he’d mentioned needing to go to an appointment. I’d minded my own business the last couple times he brought it up, but my curiosity got the best of me this time.
“What kind of appointment?”
He dropped his gaze to the book next to him, smoothing a hand over its cover. “A doctor’s appointment.”
“Are you sick?” I looked him over. He seemed fine to me.
“Not that kind of doctor. A therapist.”
“Oh,” I whispered. “For your missing memories?”
“I think so, but I don’t want them back.”
