Page 8 of My Best Friend Is Broken

The bright morning light is harsh on my tired eyes. I try not to grunt at the delivery guy, but I’m not sure if I manage it. I do manage to grunt something that passes for thanks. He doesn’t linger.

I carry the flat box down the hall like it weighs ten times more than it should. My shoulders ache, not just from holding Liam through the night, but from the knowledge pressing down on me. That scream, that terror, the way he clung like he’d drown without me.

I shuffle into the kitchen, where I slide the brightly colored box onto the breakfast bar. It clashes against the white marble. A symbol that summarizes everything. The garish exuberance of my childhood with Liam, versus the expensive, sleek and refined reality I have been trying to create.

Less than twenty-four hours with Liam back in my life, and I can already see the trappings of my existence are all show and no substance.

I rub my hands over my face and let out a tired sigh.

Liam peeks around the corner. Relief courses through me. He was in the shower for a very long time. I’m so glad he has finally emerged. Even if he does look a little dazed and his hair is still wet.

“Donuts for breakfast?” His eyebrows lift. His voice is flat, but his eyes… there’s a flicker of something, almost boyish, like he’s trying to pretend for my sake.

I force a grin onto my face. “We are adults now. We can do whatever the hell we like.”

Liam blinks at me, and I want to swallow my tongue. That hasn’t been his reality at all. If I keep this up, I’m going to be really putting my foot in it and saying something spectacularly stupid.

Liam pads into the kitchen barefoot, tugging the sleeves of his borrowed hoodie down over his hands. He looks impossibly young like that, nothing like the sharp-edged boy who once ruled the world from beneath an overpass.

I flip open the donut box with forced cheer. “Strawberry sprinkles or chocolate glaze?”

He hesitates, eyes flicking between the choices like it’s a trick question. Then, quietly he says, “Whichever one you don’t want.”

My chest tightens. “We can both have the same one, you know. There are plenty.”

He doesn’t answer. He just stands there waiting.

He always used to love chocolate. I used to tease him about having an addiction. He never denied it.

“I’ll have the strawberry,” I say.

He still says nothing. Just takes the chocolate and turns it over in his hands like it might disappear.

I bite into mine and talk too much to fill the silence. I tell him about the café down the street, the neighbor who plays his trumpet at midnight, and how Carlo nearly burned the kitchen down last week trying to flambé something he couldn’t even spell.

Liam nods, half-listening, but his gaze keeps darting to the window, the locked door, the shadows on the wall. Like he’s still in a cell, measuring the angles, waiting for the guards.

“Hey,” I say softly. “You’re safe here.”

His eyes finally lift to mine, startlingly blue, and for the first time since he stepped out of those prison gates, I catch a glimpse of the boy I used to know. It lasts all of two seconds before he drops his gaze again, mumbling, “I don’t feel safe anywhere.”

The words hang between us. Heavy. Final.

I want to tell him I’ll make him feel safe. That I’ll guard him with my life. Instead, I push the donut box toward him. “Then we’ll start small. One sprinkle-covered donut at a time.”

He huffs something close to a laugh. A real one. It cracks through his tight mask, brief but beautiful, and I want to bottle it and keep it forever.

We eat in silence after that. His shoulders stay tight, but the donut disappears quickly, like he hasn’t tasted sugar in years. Which, I suppose, could be the truth. I have no idea if they serve donuts in prison.

When we’re done, I clear the box, letting the clatter of cardboard and plates cover the way my pulse races. I don’t know what to do with him. Do I give him space? Do I hover? Everything feels wrong and right at the same time.

“Want to go out?” I blurt. “We could hit the shops, get you some clothes that aren’t… prison issue.”

His whole body tenses. “I didn’t have anything of my own.”

I guess other prisoners have families to sort things like that out. I should have realized that. I should have arrangedfor something to be delivered to him. My gaze tracks over his too-thin body. Even if I hadn’t ‌been a dufus, I would have got completely the wrong size.

“Excuse for a shopping trip!” I say brightly.