And weird.
“Get off me.”
Skylar does no such thing until he’s good and ready, and it’s hard to tell from his face if he’s happy with what he hears or I really have expired right here in this beeping, windowless box. “They’re going to need some blood from you in a bit. I can do it while I’m here.”
“You want my blood, Skylar?”
“Yeah, I’m going to drink it.” He waves a mug I haven’t noticed him retrieve. “How aboutyoudrink this?”
“What is it?”
“Dishwater tea. Hot and sweet.”
I don’t drink tea. But the appeal of holding a hot vessel in my hands is strong. So I take it and inspect the outside more than the contents. “You don’t drink teaorcoffee. So why do you have a mug with your name on at work?”
“So people can keep bringing me shit I don’t want. Fun, isn’t it?”
Not really. I sip the tea and it’s hideous, but the hot, sweet liquid slides down my scratchy throat like a dream and I drink the lot before I know what’s happened.
And Skylar’s not done. He waves a Tupperware container at me. “You should eat.”
No chance.
But Skylar has a trump card. A second plastic tub and bamboo fork. If I eat, so will he, and I love him too much to refuse.
I pop the lid and take in the home-prepped meal that looks suspiciously good. “Who made this?”
“Not me.”
“Shocker. Not Mally either, and Jack doesn’t cook fish.”
“River and Rubi do. Oscar taught them.”
It finally makes sense and I decide I don’t care who cooked the cod-topped chorizo-spiked potatoes in the tub. I eat them. So does Skylar, and the world feels like a different place when we’re done.
Skylar takes the tubs away. I wonder if he’s gone back to work. Or to a bathroom to purge our shared dinner. Because I know no amount of love and life will ever quiet that beast entirely.
But he’s back before I can get in my feelings about it and follows through on his offer to draw my blood.
Doesn’t say what it’s for and I don’t ask. I let the food I’ve eaten settle me and I drift for a while. Let my thoughts skate around, landing wherever they want. I should check on Oscar. On Sev. On my parents, even. But there’s a haze in the space responsibility usually occupies and I don’t fight it all that hard.
I speak when Skylar speaks. Comply with everything he asks. Eventually, I sleep, and when I wake up, finally,finally, it’s morning and Jack is here.
He leans over the bed, fixing things I didn’t know were out of place. Little things that ease discomfort I wasn’t aware of. He takes the hand Skylar held most of the night in a tighter, warmer grip and brushes his lips to my bruised cheek. “I missed you.”
The gravelled confession is my final undoing. I cry and he holds me. He gives me his breath when I can’t make my lungswork. And when it’s over, he doesn’t let go. Just waits for me to find some words of my own. Words that spew out of me before I can stop them. “Jackie, I’m sorry. I love you.”
“Sol, you don’t have to?—”
“No. I need to tell you. I need you to understand, even if you’re still angry after.”
“I do understand. And I’m still fucking fuming. But it doesn’t matter.”
“What?”
Jack lowers the bed rail and perches on the mattress, never letting me go. “It isn’t you I’m angry with. It’s the world, fate, whatever. I love you, Sol. I’minlove with you, and nothing and no one can ever change that.”
29JACK