Page 30 of Overexposed

In the beginning, he was happy. Then he tried to be happy. Then he gave up trying, and before too long, he was miserable. The first time he cut his wrists and bled himself, I nursed him back to a semblance of health. He refused the blood if he was strong enough to do so, and once he was healed and I wasn’t there, he used his own teeth to bleed himself again.

Tove watched this, maybe for longer than he should have.

“You have done this to him,” he told me one night. I had tried to get Owain to drink from my own wrist, which he’d refused, and I was in my bathroom, washing up.

“Do you think I do not know this is my fault?” I asked. “But what am I to do? How can I help him?”

Tove looked at me, sadness streaking his face. “Oh, child. You know what you are supposed to do. You are supposed to give him relief. To let him find peace. You are supposed to help him do what he cannot do himself and put an end to his suffering.”

So I did. It was the last time that Owain smiled at me. He said, “I wish it could have been forever too, but this is what I want.”

So I did it. I did it.

Chapter Nine

Ethan

Auris had gone still, and if he’d been able to, I might have thought he was sleeping. He held me tightly, really tightly, not anywhere near where it would hurt, but I thought it was a kind of anchoring thing for him, keeping me near and pressed against his side while the fire bathed us both in orange light.

“I’m… I’m really sorry I made you live through that again. I’m sorry I made you tell me,” I said.

Auris released his hold on me but only so he could run a hand along my spine. “There is no reason to be sorry. Owain was… He is my greatest shame. I want you to know about him. I also very much don’t want you to know about him, but I need you to know about him, do you understand?”

I nodded, my chin digging into his chest. “It’s why you said you wouldn’t turn me into a vampire.”

“Yet. I said not yet.” He lifted his head so he could look at me. “That is, if it continues to be something that you want. It may not be, of course. Not after that story. I understand that, and it changes nothing.”

I snorted. “It changes everything. But I don’t -- I’m still wrapping my head around the magic. And you recall Charlie talking about were-bears? I think what he means are berserkers, and if those really exist -- along with werewolves -- then I’m still wrapping my head around that too. What I mean is, there is so much to see in the world, much more than I could see in one lifetime, and I want to find every last abandoned place, every last beautiful place, and I want to see and capture those, but it’s like the world used to be this very clear pool where I could see the bottom thanks to all the chlorine, and now it’s this funky garden pond with all the algae and dead plants everywhere, and I can barely see the surface, but I’m standing on the side, getting ready to jump in. It’s a process.”

Auris played with my hair again, wove it around his fingers, while his eyes rested on me. Examined me. “That is very well put, Ethan. Very well.”

I craned my neck so I could see him better. “You sound like a proud teacher.”

“That makes you a high-achieving student. Is that not a good thing? Don’t you want a gold star?”

I cleared my throat. “Well, we are sleeping together, so it’s like a forbidden romance.”

He shrugged. “There are worse things.”

I stretched and sat up from the cuddle pile. Thick, heavy snowflakes were dancing in front of the window like static. I reached for the plate with the defrosted muffins on it and bit into one while enjoying the sight outside the window as well as the one in front of me: Auris, spread out on his back, two shirt buttons open at his collar, his black eyes on me.

“Did you regret it? Stepping in to save Owain that day you two first met?” I asked.

He looked away from me and up at the ceiling, but not for long. “In the beginning, after his death, yes. I thought a short, hard life full of misery would have been preferable, but I was wallowing. Feeling sorry for myself. It was, in today’s terms, not a good look.” He shrugged. “And I was privileged, make no mistake. My sorrow felt so very weighty, but in reality, Owain had suffered for my foolishness. But before that… he enjoyed it, being on the island, safe, fed, picking apples and spending lazy summer afternoons lying in the sun.”

“He did sound happy.”

Auris nodded. “By and large, he was. When he first came to the island, he would cry sometimes, at night. Tove would notice and comfort him. Owain also worried about making mistakes around my mother, but that’s mostly because perfectionism was second nature to her, and telling people how things were done and that she didn’t appreciate them being done differently came easily to her. I was even a little jealous at first, because she went easier on him than she ever did on me.”

I stuffed the last of my muffin into my mouth. “Did he ever leave the island? It didn’t sound like it.”

“He did. We did. There was a boat. Kelp and apples and salt were plentiful on the island, but grain wasn’t, and while Tove did a lot of the shopping at night, we would all go to the next bigger town sometimes.” Auris smiled, lost in his memories. “You’d think it nothing more than a tiny village, but we were always very excited. In a lot of ways, it was like a family excursion, and Tove would allow us each a cup of beer so long as we helped Mother carry things and sell the potions she made. It was not a bad childhood to have.”

I nodded and tried imagining it while munching down on another muffin. “Did you have long hair then too?”

“Hmm, not this long. Maybe your length. It wasn’t uncommon.”

“Little Auris, running through the village streets with his friend, hair billowing behind him!”

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