Page 57 of Fembot
When all the vehicles left, and it was just the two of them, it was like all the life had been sucked out of his universe. The house was an empty vessel and part of Winston wanted to leave it and never come back. Part of him wanted to get on a plane and go as far away as he could from this place.
The other part of him won and let Lucky take him back upstairs instead. He watched as Lucky returned the money to the closet safe before coming back to him. Lucky undressed himself, then Winston.
“Let’s lie down,” Lucky said. “I can’t… I don’t want….”
Winston put his fingers to Lucky’s lips, silencing him. He didn’t have to say anything. Winston understood.
Winston curled up on his side, facing Lucky, and he buried his face in against Lucky’s chest so he couldn’t see him as he broke apart.
From one minute to the next, things had gone to shit. They’d been so perfect an hour ago, and now his life was in ruins. Without Calvin, Winston didn’t even know if he and Lucky would make it. They hadn’t before. They’d tried, but havingCalvin with them had bridged the gap. Without him, Winston was now terrified that he’d lose Lucky too. That he’d lose everything.
“I never told him,” Winston’s voice cracked. “I never. He doesn’t know.”
“He knows.” Lucky smoothed his hand down Winston’s back. He kissed the top of his head and held Winston as the tears started to flow. “I promise he knows.”
Winston cried until he fell into an uneasy sleep. He woke the next day and didn’t go to class. He dragged himself downstairs and force fed himself some toast. It did nothing to fill the hollow feeling inside of him.
Lucky was also a shadow of his former self. He’d taken the bullet for Winston and had sent a text to Novak explaining what happened to Calvin so there wouldn’t be any awkward questions. The result was pitying looks, long faces, pinched brows, tight smiles. Condolences.
Fucking condolences.
The thought should count, but Winston wanted nothing to do with the well-meaning words of his friends. He wanted bed and oblivion.
No one understood. Except for Lucky.
Lucky understood. And he was Winston’s rock. He stayed by Winston’s side and made sure he ate and drank and peeled him out of bed after the third day to shove him in the shower. He changed the sheets while Winston showered sitting down on the tile floor and when the bed was clean, Lucky let him climb back into it.
“You can’t keep going like this, Winnie,” Lucky told him that night as he raked his fingers through Winston’s hair. “Calvin wouldn’t want this.”
“Calvin didn’t want to go. Calvin wanted to stay. He wanted to go to the zoo again. And the aquarium. I was going to surprisehim with a trip to the observatory. He wanted to have a life, Lucky.” Winston’s voice cracked and he pressed his trembling lips together.
Winston was breaking apart.
“Calvin went with them willingly. To protect us, Winnie. He went with that chucklefuck to keep us out of trouble. He wanted us safe. And happy.”
“You want me to be happy?” Winston tried to push away from Lucky, but he was weak and tired. Exhaustion had been his constant companion since Calvin was taken. All he wanted to do was sleep. He welcomed the oblivion like it was an old friend.
Lucky pulled him tighter. He’d probably have shaken him if he’d been in a different position. “I know we can’t be happy right now. But you can’t go on like this. You’re not eating. You’re just sleeping and crying.”
Lucky sucked in a quaking breath. “You’re scaring me, Winnie. I can’t lose you too. I can’t.”
Winston burrowed closer and cried until he was too wrung out to argue with Lucky anymore.
“Okay,” Winston said. “Tomorrow. Tomorrow, I’ll try.”
Lucky tilted Winston’s chin up and looked down at him. Wiping the tears off Winston’s cheek, he whispered. “Thank you. That’s all I need.”
Lucky kissed the salt off Winston’s skin. “Sleep now.”
Winston closed his eyes. So heavy, they felt like they were full of sand. They burned and keeping them closed helped alleviate that sensation. “I love you,” he said to Lucky, who could hear him. And again, silently in his head for Calvin, who couldn’t.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE_
ARE YOU SURE?
Yarek Danvers hookedCalvin to the programming suite.
He had his doubts about what they were about to do, and he looked to Henry for reassurance.
