Page 9 of The Care of Broken Things
“I wish that were true.”
Those words were all he needed to turn his fear into anger. Who was this guy, coming in here and patronizing him? Pretending to care about books while he tried to play at—what was he playing at? Not knowing only pissed him off more. “I don’t need to hear fuck-all from a guy who can’t even protect himself.”
Eli just looked at him. Not the way someone did when they were lost for words, but like he was appraising him, weighing his words to find the true meaning in them.
He hated it. “Whatever. Starve yourself if you want.”
And then he did exactly what Eli had accused him of—he ran away.
“It’s gluten.”
He lowered his notepad. Rat was grinning down at him with a look of triumph. “Come again?”
“The reason your boyfriend isn’t eating. It’s gluten. He can’t eat it.”
He snorted. Jenny also didn’t eat gluten. Something aboutinflammation markers and the red tones in her skin.
“Can’t, or won’t?”
“Can’t. He’s got that gluten disease. You know, the one that gives you crazy shits.”
“Celiac?”
“I think one of my cousins has it. My mother stopped inviting her to holiday parties on account of how she’s always destroying the plumbing.”
He set down his notepad. “Celiac?Really?”
The guy was a wall of muscle. No way was his ultimate weakness a wheat protein.
“Got it straight from Norm. He tried to petition the warden on your boyfriend’s behalf, but she says the only special meal order the prison does is kosher.”
“Will you stop calling him that?”
Rat leaned against the bed bars. “Apparently, he’s sensitive to all kinds of shit. Sugar, dairy and soy. They make his joints swell up with some kind of food arthritis. A regular prima donna. ”
Rat waited, but when he didn’t get a reaction, he pushed off the bed. “You’re no fun at all. Why do I bother with you?”
He wasn’t listening. No gluten.No sugar, no dairy, no soy.What did that leave him? He waited for Rat to go away, then climbed down.
Twenty minutes later he kicked Eli’s bed. It had been a day and a half since the library incident, and he hadn’t spoken a word to him since. He’d thought Eli’s perseverance would continue, but maybe the man was learning about personal space. He knew he ought to be happy about that, but the change unnerved him. He didn’t like things that didn’t come with explanations.
Eli didn’t open his eyes. “Hi, Samuel.”
“How’d you know it was me?”
“Your particular brand of hospitality.” The man paused. “Also, you smell like Reese’s cups.”
“You can smell that from here?”
He took a somewhat discreet sniff of himself, but all he could detect was the shitty prison detergent.
“Hunger sharpens the sense.”
He wasappalled. “You still haven’t—It’s been over 48 hours!”
“I’ve done 100 hour fasts before.”
That boggled the mind. “Why?”
