Page 10

Okay. Good. She can come closer. She doesn’t test it, though, gives him space even while it kills her and sinks down on the mattress at his side.

“Is this better?” she says, gently. “Can you hear me okay here?”

He nods.

Fuck, now that the chance to talk is offered, her tongue ties, and she grows flustered. Why can’t this be as easy as they deserve?

“I’m so glad you came back with me,” she starts, though it instantly feels hollow and inadequate. “I spent so much time thinking about what I’d say when I saw you again, and now that we’re here, I don’t know where to begin.”

She sniffles, having to look away and down at her own hands to gather herself.

“I never stopped looking for you,” she repeats, knowing he may not have heard it the first time. “You probably have questions and I’ll answer all of them, but…I’m just so happy you’re sitting here next to me. I missed you.”

She’s already crying and knows it won’t be the last time. Tears roll off his nose and land on clenched fists in a mirror effort.

Stopping herself from touching him leaves a coil of anxiety in her gut.

If they’re relying on her to verbalize her feelings, then they’re both fucked.

She could never do that on a good day and after years of self imposed isolation, she’s lost any social skills she crafted before it all went to shit.

“You don’t have to talk. I won’t push you. I won’t touch you unless you tell me it’s okay.”

His reply, spoken to his own lap, throws her. “Tell me something I don’t know about you and couldn’t make up myself.”

She pauses, searching her brain for random facts. “I took a job caring for reindeer at a Christmas fun park in North Carolina after I got out of the army. I only stayed a few weeks. We never talked about it. Have you ever been to Santa’s Magic Mountain?”

He shakes his head.

“Did you have any idea that it was even a thing?”

“No.”

“See, you couldn’t have made that up.”

“You’re really here?” he says, in a heartbreaking way that makes her want to hunt down Silas on the spot and rip his spine straight from his back.

“I’m really here. We’re safe, we’re home now. Please don’t leave again, Wade.”

He’s still stoic, but gives her another nod. It’s enough to ease some stress that he might bolt again.

“Hungry?” She’s so desperate for him to eat that she’d stand on her head to make it happen.

He ate some of the bread she left earlier, but there are still several other things on the plate that lay untouched. Slowly, she moves around him to pick up an apple slice that’s begun to brown at the edges, taking it back to the bed.

If he sees her eating, maybe it’ll help convince him.

“Do you remember when I showed you my stew recipe when we lived at the Person’s house?” she asks. “You said I always made it taste better.”

He doesn’t respond, but he’s eyeing the plate with interest and she just keeps going, talking around a mouthful of apple.

“And that one time you told me how to make microwave nachos?” She smiles. “Gave me all the steps one night out in the backyard while the crickets chirped. It was midnight. Hot in the middle of summer. I went out back to cool off because there wasn’t any AC.”

He reaches for the apple slices with a shaky hand.

“But there was no escaping that heat. You found me out there and we spent hours looking at the stars. Talking about nothing. Recipes and rare cold winters in Florida. How I wanted to be a cheerleader at school, but I never quite fit in. You teased me about the little skirts.”

“You never tried out,” he says so fondly that she might cry again.

“No. No, I didn’t.”

He’s quiet while he eats and doesn’t speak again until the apple is gone and another bread roll is, too.

“Was it you the other day? Did I…did I hurt you?”

She winces. “You didn’t know what you were doing.”

“Oh god,” he gasps, doubling over with his head in his hands.

She does something terribly stupid then, knowing she shouldn’t. Seeing him like this is tearing her apart, and she reaches out to lay her hand on his shoulder after explicitly saying she wouldn’t touch him. He jerks away so hard he practically climbs onto the headboard to get away from her.

She sees the exact moment he almost clocks her across the face on reflex. Pulls his arm back at the last second, horrified by his own behavior, but unable to do anything but press his back against the far wall the bed’s shoved into.

He’s been reprogrammed since she last saw him, reduced to the basic instincts needed to survive and trained to assume every touch equals pain.

That’s not something that’ll vanish just because he sees her.

She should know better. Already did this once before and learned her mistake, yet here she is again, so easily convinced that the man in front of her is the same as she remembers, that she ignores all caution.

She’s fully aware of how badly she fucked up and how lucky she is that all her teeth are still firmly attached. “Okay, okay. I’m sorry. I forgot. I’m sorry.”

Everything now is so easily broken. She has no idea how they’ll go from where they are back into something that resembles what they had.

Maybe things can never be the same again. She has to begin coming to terms with that and accept whatever he’s able to give instead of wishing for a past they’ve both left behind.