Page 176 of Hurt

Besides the obvious, the home was beautiful. A massive, sprawling structure with a pointed A framed roof and massive porch. Wrapping around the entire home, it spilled out across the lawn into the lake. Two aluminum boats with rusted hulls were pulled up onto the dock, left on their sides like beached whales. Forgotten in time.

Just like the house.

Cold wind blowing off the lake whistled through the eaves. A mournful howl of a home left in limbo—alive but only just, hanging on with just the pride of old-fashioned handiwork.

He didn’t look behind him when he heard the passenger door open and slam shut. Kurt came up beside him and stared up at the home. His face was completely unreadable.

Their eyes were drawn to a faded sign half buried in the dirt. It had fallen from where it was hung on the porch.

‘Beckett’

He heard Kurt inhale sharply.

“I bought it,” Grant explained.

Kurt turned so fast that his purple hair caught in his eyelashes. “What?”

“When they weren’t sure you would wake up, I was a mess,” Grant began in the calmest voice he could muster. “I didn’t know what to do with myself. I even tried to learn guitar,” he huffed.

“I wasn’t very good at it, by the way.”

Kurt didn’t laugh but his lips softened from their pained press.

“Don’t ask me how, because I don’t remember, but I came across this place. I didn’t even think I just called the bank and bought it.”

“No one…” Kurt trailed off.

No one wanted a house where a kid tried to kill himself in the bathroom.

Grant finally steeled himself and turned to face Kurt. He so badly wanted to hold him. To rub some warmth in those ashen cheeks and give him strength. To be the one he could lean on.

“I felt like if I could just have a small piece of you. Of your past, of a time when you were happy, then maybe I would be okay. I could cling to it, and I could be strong for you.”

Kurt looked up at him with a sort of understanding. He licked his lips and breathed out. Grant watched as his warm breath fogged up in front of his lips.

“It was hard for you,” Kurt said quietly.

“Wanyin.” Grant had to clench his hands to keep from reaching out to him. “I’m not…you seem to be under the impression that I’m a good man. That I’m infallible, or that I’m doing you some kind of favor by being here for you.”

The words sounded hollow in his mouth. How could he press all the things he was feeling into something so pathetic? So small? The depths of his emotions could make the ocean look like a teaspoon and he was trying to fill the bottomless holes in Kurt’s heart with it.

“I never thought I believed in love at first sight, but the moment I saw you I knew. I knew you were the love I would fight a war for.”

He chanced it, reaching forward to touch the lapel on Kurt’s jacket. His fingertips just barely caressing the fabric. The heat he felt was probably his imagination.

“You exist beneath my skin, in my blood, and written into my bones. You are my North Star—the light that guides me home.” He tightened his fingers on the lapel, his pointer finger and thumb rubbing on the coarse denim fabric. The texture grounded him.

“Whether it’s a castle, or this dilapidated house by the lake. As long as you’re in it, it’s home to me.”

Kurt swallowed. He didn’t push his hand off and there was a wetness in his eyes. He dropped his eyes to his boots and reached up to wrap a cold, trembling hand around Grant’s.

His heart contracted at the touch and the chill was chased from his skin.

Kurt sniffled then looked up at the house again.

“Can I…?”

“It’s yours,”