Page 64 of Fear
Tobias shook his head. “No. The sandwiches were delicious.”
Their walk back to the car was uneventful, even as they passed more groups of college kids running around. It looked like each group had a theme, and there were far too many of them. Jake shook his head as he pulled his car keys from his pocket, then looked over the metal frame to where Tobias waited by the passenger door.
“Hey, Tobias.”
“Yes, Jake?”
“Let’s have nothing but cheese dip for dinner.”
Tobias looked confused. “But we don’t have any—no. No, Jake.”
Jake grinned and swung his door open. “Damn right.”
EVERYTHING MOVED SLOWLY. Jake didn’t know why he expected otherwise. Whether staking out a suspected witch’s house or sitting in an emergency room to find out if Dad was going to live, nothing went fast in his life—except the moments that were immediately terrifying, and he supposed he was grateful they hadn’t had many of those.
Jake kept rereading Roger’s book, though he found himself skipping some sections that were too painful to think about and lingering over others that offered more hope. He knew he was looking for quick answers (and damn, had Roger chewed his ass that one time he’d discovered Jake looking for a guy with GED tests for sale) and wasn’t going to find them in those white pages or in Tobias’s wary eyes.
Still, it got easier every day. Comfortable in a danger-could-be-anywhere kind of way. Jake found himself smiling sometimes without knowing why. Once, when Tobias looked up, Jake didn’t even notice he was staring at him until Tobias smiled: a slight, honest quirk of the lips that made Jake grateful all over again that he’d called Roger instead of just drinking himself insensible and getting run over by a Volkswagen or something.
It was late on a Thursday evening, just a little bit over one month since they had arrived in Boulder. Jake left the kitchen after doing the dishes, beer in hand—he drank a few at night sometimes, but he’d managed to avoid repeating another truly fucked-up binge—and couldn’t keep the smile off his face when he saw Tobias half buried in his latest book propped up on his lap.
It was a coffee table book or something (big enough to be a coffee table, if someone attached little legs to it) and had an enormous picture of white-capped mountains on the front cover. Tobias looked so fixated, Jake would have worried the book was a matter of life and death if his expression hadn’t turned to wide-eyed wonder every time he turned a page.
Jake watched, enjoying the peace. Then he realized that Tobias hadn’t turned the page in at least a minute.
He cleared his throat and took a sip of beer. “Whatcha reading?”
Tobias looked up, blinking in surprise, and then his cheeks went a little pink. Like he was embarrassed, but just embarrassed. He didn’t look at all afraid, and it was amazing the things Jake counted as a victory these days. The things that made him as giddy as his first kiss. “Not really reading,” he said, holding Jake’s eyes with such strength that—between that and the blush, goddamn—it knocked Jake’s breath away.
He tilted his head, aware he was grinning like a loon. “Not reading? But it’s a book. Whatcha doing, then?” He set the beer on the table and came to sit down. Tobias spread the book flat on his knees.
The photo was a full double-page spread showing St. Louis’s arch at night, silhouetted against a dark city background with brilliant, flowering fireworks splashed across the sky. Tobias’s fingers ghosted over the glossy page, tracing the arch reverently.
Looking down at the photo, Jake realized that Tobias hadn’t been there. Tobias hadn’t been anywhere except a shithole prison in Nevada, a handful of places in Boulder, and this apartment. Jake had promised him so much more.
“It’s beautiful,” Tobias whispered. “I like . . . I like just looking sometimes.” He glanced at Jake and then down again. “Just looking without reading or . . . anything else.”
It wasn’t so much a plan as the knowledge that they could, so why the hell not? Nothing was holding them there. Nothing could stop them from anything they wanted. The only thing keeping Tobias cooped and confined was Jake’s fear.
Jake grabbed Tobias’s hand and pulled him up from the couch. “Let’s go,” he said. “Let’s go see it.”
Tobias stared. “Go . . . where?”
“Here!” Jake rapped the book with his knuckles and couldn’t stop grinning. “I’ll show you the Arch, the Great Lakes. I’ll show you the Grand fucking Canyon.” You deserve it all, way more than I ever have.
“I . . .” Tobias looked nervous, staring, and Jake realized maybe this wasn’t what Tobias wanted. Roger’s book had said sometimes people close to survivors projected their own desires and shit onto them. Maybe that was what he was doing now, pushing Tobias where he didn’t have the resources—yet—to go.
Jake backpedaled. “I mean, that is, if you . . .” He took a deep breath and let go of Tobias’s hand. Just because they didn’t go today didn’t mean they could never leave. There would be other days, and what Tobias needed now was most important. Even if suddenly the thought of sticking around Boulder felt like picking the scab off a wound. “Only if you want to, Tobias.”
Tobias swallowed. “Want to . . . what?”
Jake waved a hand at the book. “Go there. Go everywhere.” Just like I promised you.
“Like . . . like in the pictures you used to bring? Is this a ‘no’ question?”
“No, I promise this is serious. You can say no if you want to, but yeah, it’s like the pictures I used to bring.”
Tobias turned and looked at the book. Jake saw his throat work and his hands clench. “C-can we? Am I allowed . . .” He shook his head. “Yes, Jake. I want to. If we can.”
