Skylar comes back. He brings the thick blanket from Jack’s bed and bottles of water. Medication. Fiadh, who licks Jack’s elbow then hops up onto the other couch to keep her vigil from there.
It leaves Mal alone in the hallway. I half expect Skylar to return to him.
He doesn’t.
Like so many times before, he flicks the red lamp on and stays, we both do, and we endure it together.
Eventually, Mal slinks in and stops at the end of the couch, gaze fixed on his stricken brother, agitation rolling off him in waves.
“Put some music on,” Skylar murmurs. “Quiet and calm.”
“Why?”
“So he has something to hold onto when he starts to come back.”
“He’s not asleep?”
Skylar shakes his head, blond hair falling out of his hood. “No.”
Mal doesn’t like that. And I don’t blame him. I hate it too. If Jack was sleeping, it would be easier to believe he was at peace. But the in-between he’s caught in, even if he won’t remember it later, I know it’s not pleasant. I feel it in every rapid-fire shudder wracking his body. Every tremor runs through him and straight into me, as if he’s bound to the world by a gossamer thread and I’m the only thing keeping it whole.
Breathe, Jack.
He is, but it’s slow; a far-off tide that doesn’t want to come home. His other eye is half open, unfocused, lashes shivering against his cheek. I press his rogue eyelid a little harder as Malmanages to find probably the only music on Skylar’s phone that isn’t metal.
Doves. The opening chords of Break Me Gently are eerie in the dark living room, but somehow it works.
And Mal…
He comes to Jack’s side and stoops low enough to rub his brother’s forearm. “We’re here.”
It’s all he says before he retreats to Skylar, but it’s something—it’s everything, and Jack expels a soft breath in response.
The evening stretches out. Skylar sends Mal downstairs to close the pub, a notion that should be funny, but without Jack, there is no humour. No laughter, no life. It’s later than late by the time he really does fall asleep, his fingers curled in my shirt as if he’s afraid I’ll leave if he doesn’t hold on.
Never.
A born fisherman, I’m as scared of the sea as every soul should be. But the strongest current on earth couldn’t drag me from Jack tonight, and it’s a forever state of mind.
He stirs at dawn.
I’m wide awake, at one with the ceiling. I don’t notice he’s alert until he touches my face. “What’s wrong?”
Again.
What’s wrong?
What’swrong?
At least this time I can answer him without carving a hole in his thigh. I lean into his touch, just a little—justenough, to tear me in two all over again. “I was worried about you. How are you feeling?”
Jack doesn’t answer immediately. And that foot beneath the blanket Skylar tucked around us, it flexes, rubbing my calf.
“I’m real, Jackie. I promise.”
He presses his face into my neck to be sure, breathing me in, while I thread my fingers through his hair, searching for the spot that can shift his mood if I time it right.
I find it, and he moans. A sound I hear in my best dreams. But with the memory of him shaking in my arms last night seared on my heart, I find no pleasure in it. Only relief that he’s present enough to feel it.