Unless it’s jam on toast, he’s less interested in nourishment beyond fuel than me, but he never does anything half-arsed, and I’m here for it. Gives me a moment to study him while he’s busy. While he’s not watching me back, daring me to notice that he moves slower these days, one side of his body weaker than the other. His dark brow furrows and the little crease between his eyes deepens as he dials in to check the flame beneath the egg pan and rescue the bacon from the heat with a focus that has me thinking of a different time, a different place, and a different bed to the one we woke up in this morning.
Teach me, Sol. I want to fucking learn.
Gods, make it stop.
Gods, make itstay.
I retune to Jack’s current mood. He doesn’t seem angry anymore. Or even tired. Just…absorbed. If I didn’t know where that earnest concentration came from, it’d be all kinds of cute.
Trouble is, I do know. It’s what’s left behind. The ashes of everything he’s lost. And watching him like this makes that thing inside me ache with love and sadness. It reminds me how his voice cracked when he called my name last night and every night before it, and the melancholy that forever simmers under my skin finds a way to the surface.
I turn away before Jack can see it. Mess with the sink and fix my gaze on the window, fighting the recurring sting in my eyes.Anything to give him my back so he doesn’t catch this look on my face and worry. Or worse, think every hurt I bear is his fault. Jack’s my world. He’s the blood in my veins and the air in my lungs. He’s every emotion I’ve ever had, and sometimes loving him tears me apart because I can’t fix what broke him.I can’t make him remember. And so I stand here with the solid warmth of him at my back, and for a moment, it has to be enough.
“Is Mal allowed to eat this?”
Jack’s voice shakes me out of a heavy daze.
He’s finished cooking. Bacon. Eggs. Mushrooms cooked with olive oil and Oscar’s favourite: spinach. It’s the bacon he’s frowning at, his brother on his mind.
“Mal’s healthy.” I tell him the truth. “Nothing here is going to hurt him.”
I’m being literal. Talking about the food and reaching for my limited knowledge of Mal’s dodgy ticker. Truth be told, Jack knows more about it than I do. But as his frown returns and his hands bunch and flex at his sides, I know he’s thinking about more than breakfast, and that he’s doing it hard enough to give himself a headache.
I take his hands, derailing the restless clenching. “Mal’s good. If he wasn’t, he’d tell someone. He promised you.” More than once. And I almost believed him. But Mal’s not the kind of man you can coddle. Like Skylar. LikeJack.So we watch and we wait, and we’re steadfast for the people we love when they need us.
Jack’s still frowning, but the front door reroutes his attention. Mal moves around like a ghost. Skylar’s more human. I hear him coming, and of course Mal’s right behind him, a little older, taller, and wider.
Our housemates slip into the kitchen like they’ve been here all along.
Skylar eyes the food, indecision on his face, night-shift fatigue lining his features. Mal eyesme, like the bloodhound he is, and I wonder what he’s seeing. The boy’s clever. Intuitive. Even more perceptive than Oscar. Does he know Jack’s worried about him? Does he know my body is still singing with unspent need for his brother?
Wow.
That’s not a good sentence. An internal grimace rocks me and I release Jack’s hands to open the plate cupboard. Grab four—always, always four, even if one goes empty.
Jack dishes up, Mal first, remembering what his brother likes without thinking too hard about it. I wonder if he realises his brother is the one constant in his fractured memory. Past, present, future, I can’t think of a single thing he’s ever forgotten about Mal.
Skylar’s more complex, in every sense. But Jack doesn’t falter as he arranges eggs and bacon on a second plate, no veggies, shifting a little so Skylar can see everything he’s doing, before he slides it to the end of the counter.
Close enough to reach.
Far enough to ignore.
Like my phone.
And however clumsy Jack believes himself to be, he’s good at this delicate dance with Skylar. Wordless instinct, subtle caretaking. Enough soft nuance that Skylar takes the plate and sits at the table without that horrid pause he sometimes has to fight. As if he’s waiting for a sign from the Gods that it’s safe.
I don’t know what that sign is.
Jack. Me.Mal.
But as Skylar picks up a fork and starts eating, it doesn’t matter.
Jack nudges me. “You feel like you’re somewhere else.”
“I’m right here.”
“Are you?” He angles his head to study me with deeper intent. “You’re so quiet. Are you okay?”