Page 35 of In This Iron Ground
“And if I want to?” Nova asked.
“Then…yeah. That’d be great.”
“We’ll talk to Mia when she has a second,” Nova said, nodding. Damien smiled.
Eventually, Damien had to escape the onslaught. He sought Hakan out, who was laying on the grass away from the crowd. Damien approached him tentatively, stopping when Hakan turned his head to look at him.
“You probably heard me a mile away, huh?” Damien said.
“Yep.”
“Can I…?”
“Sit.”
Damien lay down next to Hakan. They stayed silent. They looked at the sky, an endless blue.
*****
The summer cracked open then. Damien spent the long, hot days running around with the twins, their nearly inexhaustible energy used to build tree houses and fight creatures of the forest only they could see. They would all take shelter in the hottest hours of the day, fans moving humid air about, stretched on Koko’s bed, or Hakan’s. They would all go to lakes together and took a day trip to the sea. Damien started his lessons, two every week in the Salgado library, Nova’s eyes keen and secretive as they unravelled mysteries together.
On one of the cooler nights, Cameron took him to a part of the forest Damien had never been to. It was right next to the house but hidden enough that he’d never noticed it before. There, Cameron had revealed what the family called Jurassic Park, even though it had nothing to do with either dinosaurs or the era.
Damien had to stop a moment to catch his breath.
The area had been cleared of the trees indigenous to the forest but was filled with what seemed like every other type of plant. There seemed to be no order in the madness, a mixture of potted and soil plants, trees, bushes. There was a small tractor to one side, overrun by ivy, a series of cactus pots on its wheels. There were fruit trees and flowerbeds, coexisting as if by magic. A path wound its way through the man-made jungle, ending at a conservatory between it and the forest.
“I…what…” Damien was speechless.
“This is my little corner of the world. I have a bit of a green thumb,” Cameron said, turning his bear paws one way and another.
Damien looked from Cameron’s dark, calloused skin and back to the tangled garden.
“I heard you like plants too,” Cameron said. Damien looked up at Cameron’s face, nodding. “I’d love some help, if you would like to do some gardening with me.”
“But…this is your space,” Damien said. He understood about corners of the world you didn’t want to reveal. Cameron smiled.
“Yes, and I’d like to share it with you.”
Damien had to breathe through the urge to cry. “Yes, please,” he said quietly.
Life had turned into a dream.
Almost every evening, when the sun set into a cicada-filled night, he went up to Hakan’s room to spend the dark hours tucked away beside the other boy, reading and talking, sharing air, space.
One of those nights, as Damien dozed in that soft place just before sleep, he blinked open his eyes to see Hakan watching him. His face was serious, reserved.
“What’s wrong?” Damien slurred sleepily, the concern not quite breaching the fog around him. There was a pause. Hakan shifted closer. Damien could almost imagine his warmth.
“You’d tell me, right?” Hakan said quietly, as if he were sharing a secret. “You’d tell me, if you weren’t okay.” The quiet stretched between them, no less soft. Intimate.
“Yeah. I’d tell you,” Damien replied, knowing that there wouldn’t be the slightest change to his scent.
He closed his eyes, and the summer burned away.
**********
The new school year brought another change into Damien’s life in the shape of a new student.
