Page 3

William

I jerked awake with a gasp, barely managing to keep the name clawing its way up my throat from exiting my mouth in a scream. The nightmares were back. It had been a blissful few weeks without them.

Shoving the blanket off me, I wiped the sweat from my neck while attempting to orient myself with my surroundings. Moonlight pierced through the glass wall as the rain raged on, and the newspaper I’d been holding earlier lay on the floor near the coffee table.

Dropping my feet to the area rug, I dug the heels of my palms into my eyes, trying to rub away the final dregs of sleep in hopes of gaining clarity. The last thing I remembered was Ryan drifting off to sleep on the floor, and me watching him from this very spot. Ryan. I shot to my feet, looking around to see if he might be sitting in the kitchen or at the other end of the expansive room. I was alone.

Ambient light shone from the hallway leading to the library. I looked around for my phone to check the time, but then remembered I’d left it on my desk after speaking with Davidson earlier. I set off in that direction.

The brass picture lights hanging over the bookshelves illuminated the room in a soft golden hue. Ryan stood in front of my award case with his back to me, skating a finger over the engravement of one of my gold-plated statues.

“ être dans la lune ,” I pronounced softly, not wanting to scare him. He wheeled around like I had anyway, wearing a caught-red-handed expression. Not caught touching something he had no right to, but caught caring about something. The way his eyes fell from my face to my shoulder made me believe that. Recalling how he responded to me hearing his hunger made me sure of it too. Ryan didn’t want me knowing anything about him, specifically anything he perceived to be a weakness. I looked toward the accolade he’d been trying to read. He was curious about me. I found the idea both moving and terrifying.

“It’s a French film. To be in the Moon . I won that one for Best Original Score.”

He swallowed, his breathing irregular.

“I didn’t mean to scare you. I woke up and you were gone… I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

He’d pressed his back into the case when I entered. I retrieved my phone from my desk, then returned to the doorway to put him at ease. After checking the time I did the math in my head. I slept for three hours. Had he been awake for most of those? I slipped the phone into my pocket after seeing I had a few missed calls and texts from Davidson and Xavier.

“I’ve been meaning to box this stuff up.” I scanned the meaningless trophies, feeling no pride in having won them. “I showcase them for my mother’s benefit, really. To keep her from worrying about me. She worries when I choose not to focus on the good. When I minimize it in preference of the bad.”

Ryan turned away from me as if he didn’t want to hear about what might not be good in my life. I didn’t blame him, not when imagining what his life had been like prior to yesterday. My martyrdom suddenly resembled ungratefulness.

“I was thinking of having my mother over for dinner one night. She’s a great cook, and we could use some variety around here. Plus, the longer I try to keep her from visiting, the more insistent she’ll become.” I didn’t know how long Ryan would be here. The others had been ready to transfer to Safe Haven after a week or two. I wouldn’t rush him, though. It would take as long as it took. I did have people in my life that would want my attention, though. Primarily my mother and Xavier. If Ryan was going to be here a while, I’d need to start warming him up to the idea of them.

“She’s a great listener too,” I added without revealing what she did for a living. I didn’t want to pressure him. “I’m guessing after a few days we’ll get tired of eating breakfast for every meal.” I knew he wouldn’t eat take-out. Everything would need to be prepared in front of him before he ate it. I supposed I could have just sampled everything first, but cooking would be the way to get my mother in here, so I’d stick with that reasoning.

“Did you sleep well?” I whispered. My question sent his nostrils flaring. Nothing I said seemed to be the right thing but I’d keep talking anyway. It worked with the others—although where they’d been mostly scared, anger seemed to be Ryan’s primary emotion. I began second-guessing myself, unsure if I was equipped for this. The empty pit in me expanded further, letting me know my demons agreed.

“How about a tour of the place?”

Ryan peered up looking guilty before bowing his head so his hair hid most of his face. I froze up thinking of all the private things he could have seen on his exploration. Things I didn’t ever want anyone seeing.

“Ryan?” Fear scrambled my brain as his haunted, yet honest, eyes returned to me. I relaxed then, somehow knowing he hadn’t pried into anything that could have exposed me.

“How about the recording studio then?” You needed a code to get in, so he wouldn’t have been able to venture in there. His eyes glittered with something close to excitement before the spark died again, as though there was still too much bad weighing down any possibility of good in his life.

I led the way, ascending the staircase at the far end of the living room with Ryan in tow. I punched the four-digit code into the panel, saying the numbers out loud so he could memorize them. “Not sure why the previous owners wanted to secure the room, but it seemed easier to leave it than to have someone come in and remove it.” I shrugged, waving my arm over the threshold to activate the motion sensor lights. “After you,” I gestured for him to go in ahead of me. I wanted to see his reaction, even if it’d be from behind.

He hesitated, as if not trusting that I wouldn’t lock him inside, but then he contorted his body to ensure we didn’t touch when he breezed past me. With slow and steady steps, Ryan bypassed the control room, his gaze fixed on the live room. It was large enough to record a chamber orchestra, and held the instruments needed to do so.

He ran a hand over the soundproofed door, then the acoustic panels on the wall, frowning at me over his shoulder.

“To contain the sound. The insulation is top notch. You barely hear anything when the door is closed.”

He moved past the piano next, jumping when his trailing fingers pressed one of the keys. It was adorable. I bit the inside of my cheek to stop myself from smiling. Ryan stared at me expectantly, and I took a gamble that he was asking me if I played.

“I’m no concert pianist, but I get by. It’s actually the instrument I started with as a kid. I moved on to something else after being inspired to.” I waited with my heart in my throat for him to ask about my inspiration. It wasn’t something I talked about. Ever. He didn’t seem to care and his gaze lifted to the Decca Tree ceiling mounts keeping the microphones suspended.

His disinterest in the matter filled me with relief, but not for the reasons one would think.

“My grandfather is responsible for my love affair with the symphony. He’d babysit me while my mother took night classes at the community college—after having served tables all day at the shabby diner down the block,” I added, wanting him to know my life had never been easy. I hadn’t expected him to pause his exploration to give me his undivided attention. I couldn’t read his expression. Something told me he was working hard to make sure of it.

“Uh,” I started, scratching my brow trying to remember where I’d left off instead of focusing on how exposed he made me feel. “My grandfather couldn’t sleep without some sort of white noise in the background. Something about it drowning out the sound of bombs striking overhead.” Post traumatic stress disorder, I’d later understood.

“My mother could only afford a studio apartment, which meant the bedroom and the living room were one and the same. So if grandpa listened to white noise, then so did I. He’d let me choose, but his battered radio didn’t have many options. It was either static or the classical music station, WKTS. Static kept me up all night,” I said wryly. “Still does.”

I rubbed at the back of my neck, feeling silly all of a sudden. I couldn’t get a read on whether or not Ryan cared, or if he was just being polite.

“I found it fascinating that songs without words could inspire such strong emotions. That I could go from happy, to sad, to outright petrified depending on the piece. On the chords or notes struck. Some nights I thought my heart would beat right out of my chest as the symphony reached its crescendo. Some nights I’d cry myself to sleep from the sheer beauty—or terror—of it all.” I’d peeled back a layer of my soul with that last confession, and I waited for Ryan to make me regret it. He didn’t.

“I fell in love with film too, realizing the score dictated whether you laughed or seethed or hid behind your hands in fright.” I huffed, getting lost in my memories as Ryan watched on. “‘ Under The Skin , The Lighthouse , and There Will Be Blood’ were some of my favorites. The score for ‘ Suspiria’ was an assault on the auditory system. One fan described it as making a slow walk down a hallway feel like a rollercoaster ride. I wholeheartedly agreed.” I paused, checking the level of my excitement, wondering if this was all too much for him, if it would have a negative impact on him. I got the sense he wanted me to continue as much as he wanted me to stop, because while his expression still told me nothing, his arms hung rigid at his sides, hands bunching in the sweats he wore.

“Ever since I could remember I dreamed of playing in the Philharmonic,” I whispered. “While other boys my age played in the dirt, or shot hoops, or were obsessed with video games, I spent my spare time living and breathing the symphony. It was the only thing that saved me when…” I couldn’t finish, and his facial expression shifted then, to something resembling anger and disappointment. Did he know I was a coward? Did he know that while I wanted him to be brave, to not let what happened to him define him, that I couldn’t do the same? I was a hypocrite. Did he know it? Did he not speak because he heard and understood more in the silence?

I didn’t take a breath until he turned away, in fear that its shakiness would give away whatever I’d managed to keep in. Whatever scrap of truth I’d managed to hide.

He ambled through the lineup of instruments as though he had all the time in the world, never stopping again to give me that questioning look he had with the piano. It was like he’d seen me, summed me up, and was no longer curious about what made me… me.

He plucked a few strings on the cello before wandering on to do the same with the harp. He hadn’t done it with any skill, just an absent sampling of sound as he perused.

I wished I could see his face, wished I could see if anything in the room meant something to him, or if it was a temporary fascination with something he’d never been this up close to before.

I got my answer when he made it to the violin. He stared at it for a while before reaching for it. He drew his hand back before making contact, making two more attempts before seeing it through. Removing it from its stand, Ryan examined every inch of it before bringing it to his chest and sagging. It clearly must have sparked a memory in him, and I desperately wanted the details. Something good? Something that brought him comfort, or something that caused him pain?

I got my answer to that too when the air in the room turned stifling. The ache radiating from his trembling shoulders hit me square in the chest. I brought a hand to my throat as the phantom blow morphed into a type of pressure I couldn’t breathe through. All that he experienced in that moment, I experienced too, as if his pain had become our pain.

It was too big for me, so it had to be astronomical for him. How was he standing there surviving it? How was he not a crumpled heap on the floor?

The sniffling started then, and I took two steps forward, my arms opening, ready to embrace him. I stopped myself, the abruptness of it audible on the shiny hardwood floor. I couldn’t touch him. Not without his permission. Not when I didn’t know what that touch would mean to him. The way he’d skirted around me to enter the room left little to the imagination.

I backed into the control room before spinning and exiting completely, closing the door to allow him and his pain some privacy.

Downstairs, with nothing to do but worry, I decided to cook for him. Bagels and waffles again. I had everything set up once he reached the bottom landing, and I did him the courtesy of not meeting his eyes. I wouldn’t have been able to hide my own emotions at seeing the aftermath of him crying, and the last thing I wanted was for him to think I pitied him.

I took a few bites of everything, waiting long enough for him to see I hadn’t died before leaving him alone again.

Entering the library, I pulled my favorite book from its shelf, then sat at my desk, reading it twice. I would’ve gone for a third round but it became hard to read past the tears in my eyes. It wouldn’t have mattered anyway. No matter how many times I recited the words, I’d never be as mighty as Gargantuan. I’d forever be weak.

Ryan wasn’t in the kitchen when I returned, and his dishes had been cleaned. I checked the trash bin, but other than my first uneaten bagel from earlier, and a few other miscellaneous items, it was empty. He’d eaten all his food. At least we were making progress on that front.

I flopped onto the couch feeling useless and defeated, but determined to be better the next day. I owed it to him. I owed it to them all.

Lost in thought, I idly stroked the knit throw’s frayed edges, remembering how hot I’d been when I woke up with it draped over me.

My fingers stiffened. Everything came to a halt at once. My negative thoughts, my concerns, and the heavy exhaustion pulling at me. I looked over to the spot on the floor where Ryan had fallen asleep earlier, then peered down at the blanket in my hand. The blanket I’d covered him with. The one I’d been covered with.

Slowly, I got to my feet, inching toward the hall and staring at Ryan’s closed bedroom door. The faintest hint of a smile spread across my lips as I realized that with this small, insignificant gesture, he’d taken care of me. He’d returned the favor.