Page 59 of Splintered
It wanted him to stop. It tried to make him quit.
“I will always choose you, Evan.”
The amber chandelier at the top of the stairs exploded.
Ben grabbed the knife.
* * *
Chapter Seventeen
Six Months Later
Crisp spring grasscrunched under Ben’s feet.
It was early enough in the morning that the dew still clung to the leaves, but a mercurial warmth had begun to penetrate the morning fog. The light was serene, buckets of sunshine poured across the horizon, turning clouds to puffs of golden light. It felt timeless, this place.
He liked visiting Evan here, in the mornings like this. It was peaceful. Quiet. He liked the way the world seemed to still, that time had stopped. He closed his eyes, breathed in.
He made a fist with his hands, opening and closing his stiff fingers. Even now, even months after, his hand still ached. The scars weren’t too noticeable. But the burn had been bad, turning his hand to a mess of blisters and sloughed tissue, burned fat and muscle and blackened skin snaking up both of his arms. A lick of fire had wrapped around his waist, too. He had a burn scar that wreathed his hips, as if the house had tried to pull him back, drag him back into the flames even as he’d escaped through the front windows. He still had glass scars over his shoulders, on his cheeks.
Sometimes—
“Ben.”
He pushed his thoughts to the side. It wasn’t time for any of that. He rose, smiling, and held out his arms. “Evan.”
It was time to be with his love.
They hugged, Evan burying his face in Ben’s neck and breathing him in, like the hours they were parted were too much for him, like he needed to be greedy and take as much of Ben inside of himself as he could. Ben felt the same, and he stroked Evan’s hair, his back, molded their bodies together as much as he could. They swayed in the courtyard, letting time fall away as they let their bodies do the talking.
After six months at the University of California’s San Francisco psychiatric hospital, Evan was nearly back to his old self. The night of the fire, Ben had wrestled the knife from his hands and then flung them both through the living room windows. After, as they lay burned and broken in the dewy grass, and the sirens of the fire department and the police had descended on their world, and the hum, the buzz, theweighthad finally lifted from his mind, he’d asked Officer Velasquez to arrange for transport to the UCSF hospital. He rode with Evan in the ambulance to the ER, where they were both treated for their burns.
And after, Ben signed Evan into the inpatient psychiatric hospital for long-term care.
As Father Mathew had said, healing was a journey.
But it was a journey they were making together. One whole family.
His house burned to ash that night, every wall, post, and beam crumbling to nothing. He’d told the firefighters to let it burn, to focus on saving the neighbors, to contain the spread of the blaze. But to not try anything heroic.
In the morning, there was nothing left but rubble, a stain of blackened ash on the street, and the remnants of a hundred years of memories.
Donna and William moved him into their home in Mountain View on the south peninsula. “We’re family now,” William had said, giving him a key to their home. Donna had made up Evan’s old room, put fresh sheets and towels in the bathroom for him. “You’ll always have a home here with us.” They ate dinner together most nights, visited Evan together as a family every week.
They never spoke of moving Evan to San Diego. It wasn’t what families did. They stayed together. They stayed whole.
Ben quit his job teaching in the East Bay, the last connection left to his old life, and accepted a job in the city a few blocks away from Evan’s hospital. Every day, he walked the blocks to see him as often as he could, even if only for a few minutes.
It had been the hardest thing he’d ever done in the beginning. Showing up. Coming back. Seeing Evan in the throes of his demons. Raging at the world and then going catatonic. Days spent in a stupor, drugged out, or lost in his own mind. The days he seized with fury and the days he had to spend in isolation were equally terrifying.
But he never stopped coming.
And slowly, Evan found his way back.
Father Mathew and Dr. Kao were still working with him. After the exorcism, Father Mathew had needed two days in the hospital and twenty stitches, thanks to Evan’s stabbing. But he showed up at Evan’s hospital in a bandage and a sling and greeted Evan with a warm hug.
Part of Evan’s healing, at Evan’s request, was more prayer and blessings. Mini exorcisms. Spiritual counseling. He met with Father Mathew four times a week. Ben and he went through couple’s counseling, too, as Evan grew stronger. And through their therapy, they grew stronger.
