Page 101 of Saving Sparrow
I shook my head, feeling silly after realizing he wasn’t asking why I was in Alaska or why I was in this house. Sparrow wanted to know why I was in this room right now, bothering him.Thatquestion had a simpler answer.
“I just wanted to say thanks.” I held up the book. “For this and for the food and medicine. I was so tired. Shoveling snow is hard work.”
Sparrow grunted as he swept the floor. “I told you I didn’t need your help.”
“You’re awfully grumpy, you know.”
He glared at me. I didn’t think he was upset because I called him grumpy, but because my presence disrupted his compulsion to clean.
“Sorry,” I said, understanding that while it wasn’t my intention, I could be doing harm by interrupting his process.
“Was he?” he asked as I stepped into the hall.
“Was he what?”
Sparrow narrowed his eyes, refusing to repeat himself.
“No.” I gave my answer some consideration. “Elliott was solemn—more so in the beginning. He spent a lot of time with his thoughts. He was shy, gentle, and naïve. We were all naïve sometimes, but Elliott was different. He just… didn’t know a lot of things, and I don’t mean academically. The world made him nervous.” I crossed into the room again.
“He craved love and touch.Somuch touch. He practically purred whenever we touched him. Quentin and I worshipped him. He was our religion, the altar we knelt at.” How was I supposed to go on without them? They were the air I breathed, the goodness in my heart, the flame that lit up my body. I decided to stop there. “No, I wouldn’t call him grumpy.”
“If you worshipped him, then why amIhere?” He didn’t sound angry, just interested in the answer.
“We’ll get to that.” At this point, it wasn’t about trying to prove that Quentin and I hadn’t hurt Elliott that day. Sparrow had to know we had nothing to do with the violence of that night, even if he wouldn’t yet admit it.
I just needed him to know our love story. I needed him to know Elliott’s life was filled with goodness and love. I needed Sparrow to know Quentin and I had picked up the baton when he left, even if we hadn’t known it at the time. I needed him to know he could trust me with his most prized possession again. But I also wanted Sparrow himself to heal, to find his own measure of peace. Because if I’d learned anything now, it was that in order to save Elliott, I’d need to save Sparrow first.
Sparrow went back to cleaning, and I quietly reclined on the couch, starting Demian’s story from chapter one. In my periphery, I caught him stealing glances. Did he stare because he wanted megone? Or because he felt drawn to my presence? Either way, I kept my head down, pretending not to notice.
Four hours had passed by the time he was done. Every baseboard, every book lining the shelves, and every surface had been dusted and cleaned. The room sparkled—as impossible as it seemed in a house rooted in darkness and poison.
Sparrow closed his eyes, working a kink out of his neck, his braid dangerously close to unraveling.
“Are you hungry?” I asked tentatively, setting the book on the table next to me. I’d leapt from the couch to one of the chairs after he’d started vacuuming the upholstery as if he had no intention of skipping over me with the hose.
“I still have two more rooms on my schedule.” At this rate, he’d be cleaning until midnight.
“Can you stop to eat first? I’m feeling lightheaded,” I tossed in for good measure, playing on his protective instincts.
Sparrow looked me over for signs that I wasn’t well before speaking. “I can’t leave things like this.” He gestured to the mop, the bucket, the scrub brushes, and everything else in his cleaning arsenal.
“What will happen if you do?”
Sparrow stared at me as if I’d grown an extra head.
“We need to eat,” I said.
His expression clouded, going from appalled to antagonistic. “Don’t tell me what to do.”
I stood, getting close enough to make out the tiny freckle at the corner of his left eye, close enough to make his nostrils flare. “I sat here and watched you work yourself to the bone for hours, and can only imagine how long you’d been cleaning before I showed up. I’m tired and hungry just from watching you. You must be starving. And now you want to continue your cleaning rampage? I’m worried about you, Sparrow. Will you please stop and eat with me? Please?”
Sparrow licked his lips—a move so unlike him. He backed away, as if unable to think with me so close to him. “I… You…”
“Please don’t be upset,” I breathed, sensing he was working himself up to that, the one thing that felt familiar to him. “Just…” I shrugged. “Eat with me.”
He closed his eyes, loosening his posture before asking in a hoarse voice, “What will we eat?”
“Arroz con pollo.”I smiled, already knowing he had all the ingredients.
