Smile. Nod. Pass the salt. Pretend everything’s fine.
Every night, I sneak into his bed, and his arms clutch around my waist like I’m his lifeline. And maybe I am. At least the shadows under his eyes disappear because he’s sleeping again—actuallysleeping instead of lying awake staring at the ceiling, running through worst-case scenarios like some kind of nightmare calculator.
And I get to hold him.
Give, without expecting anything in return.
Is this what love is?
He’s said he loves me, but I’ve held back the words. Kept them locked tight behind my teeth. Because one, I never thought I was capable of it—love feels like something that happens to other people, people who didn’t grow up the way I did. And two, I never thought I’d recognize the feeling if it did ever happen. How would I know? I don’t have a reference point. Darlene didn’t exactly model healthy emotional attachment.
And three—the back of my mind whispers it, getting louder every time I push it away—if I ever dared crack open the cold shell of my heart, it would mean...
The whisper becomes a roar:Ruin. Pain. Abandonment.
All the things I’ve spent my life avoiding.
All the things that happen when you let yourself need someone.
He only lets me comfort him at night. That’s our deal, unspoken but understood.
Each morning, I wake to an empty bed and the sound of the shower running. That’s my cue to leave, to slip back through the bathroom to my own room before Helen or Silas notice. And the rest of the day, he doesn’t want to talk to anyone. Doesn’t want to be touched or comforted or acknowledged.
He retreats behind his walls, and I let him, because I understand walls better than most people.
It goes like that for the rest of our break.
It kills me.
Watching him suffer. Watching him pretend he’s not suffering. Knowing I can only reach him in the dark, in those stolen hours when he’s too exhausted to keep his shields up.
So I spend time gaming with Marie and Z in the basement to distract myself.
Marie’s been coming over a lot during break—started as her checking on Caleb when I told her about Helen because I needed to talk to someone about it—but evolved into actual hangouts. She fits surprisingly well into our little found family of misfits, even if Z side-eyes her sometimes like he’s trying to figure out if she’s for real. Or maybe because he finds her cute?
I can’t decide how I feel about that, if only for Marie’s sake. Z has been less volatile the last couple of months, but you never know with him. On the one hand, it would be awesome if my two friends wanted to go out with each other.
On the other, everything around here is already too stressful, and if Z breaks her heart, it would only add to the chaos. Marie’s never even had a boyfriend before.
“Your form is shit,” Z announces, not looking up from the screen where he’s building some kind of elaborate redstone contraption. “You’re gonna get swarmed.”
“My form is fine,” Marie argues, her avatar sprinting through a cave system. “I’ve got a strategy?—”
“Your strategy is panic and flail.”
“It’s worked so far!”
“You’ve died six times.”
“Those are just practice deaths. They don’t count.”
I snort, my own character hanging back witha bow, picking off zombies from a safe distance. “Practice deaths. Is that what we’re calling it now?”
“I’m learning the mechanics,” Marie insists, but there’s humor in her voice. “Harper, back me up here?—”
“Oh no.” I’m already shaking my head. “I’m staying out of this. You two can fight about Minecraft strategy without me.”
“Coward,” Z mutters, but he’s grinning.