Page 105 of Shrapnel

Something wet stung Owen’s palm and he swallowed back his own tears. He couldn’t cry. He wouldn’t. His thumb stroked Jamie’s cheek and Jamie tightened his grip on his leg, burying his face against Owen’s thigh.

“The rain was so cold that when the blood dripped down my skin, I thought it felt good. It was warm. There was water in my eyes so I couldn’t see what happened, but I remember my mom screaming. He got her before she could finish cutting her own throat. Or maybe she chickened out. I don’t remember much until Grant.”

Owen knew the rest from Elijah. Grant brought a half dead Jamie back to Weaver Syndicate. At the time he had been horrified. Who could stab a child?

His own mother.

Owen didn’t know what was worse, his mother stabbing him because she hated him or because she was trying to save him. He stared down at Jamie’s huddled form. The space was suddenly too much. He pulled Jamie towards his lap, pressing his face into his chest and letting his long arms wrap around him. Owen tried to make him feel as safe as Jamie had when they were outside his burning apartment.

He didn’t say anything. What could he even say? It all sounded so flat. Pathetic. I’m sorry? Of course he was sorry. He would do anything to go back in time and save young Jamie, bring him home to his bunkbed with the Star Wars sheets. Where his greatest fear was his candy stash being found by his mom or that the ceiling fan might inexplicably fly off.

Owen remembered what Elijah said.

“You went back with her…” he started, unsure if he should finish. Jamie was shaking, the tremors moving up from his hands to his whole body.

“She said she was clean. That she had gotten away from him and wanted me back. I knew it was too good to be true. Knew there was no way but—”

“She was your mother.”

Jamie nodded. “I went anyway. It was all a lie. He just wanted me back, I never found out why. Maybe some kind of ego trip. Even sober my mom was fucked up. Her body and mind were just…gone. Black. She was only a little older than I am now, but she looked like she was a hundred. All her hair falling out.” He swallowed audibly. “But the worst part was my friend. He had spent the last few years taking the abuse and they had…they ruined him. He was vicious. Evil. Took it out on me. Blamed me for leaving.”

Owen stroked the back of his head. “It wasn’t your fault.” The words were so hollow.

Jamie snorted. “A lot of what happened I don’t remember. They gave me drugs, shot them right into my arm so I couldn’t fight back. It’s all a blur. I wanted to go back to the Weavers but I felt…I felt so dirty. I missed them so much but how could I go back? I was filthy. Everything that had happened, and I couldn’t…” his words were thick, and Owen could feel wetness blooming on his shirt.

“You aren’t dirty. Or filthy. Jamie stop, please breathe. You don’t have to finish.”

He shook his head. “I killed him. I killed him, Owen. I picked up a gun and it was so easy. He tried to stop me, begged me not to leave him alone again. Said he loved me but I just…I just pulled the trigger.”

So easy, a child can do it.

At the time Owen thought Jamie was being facetious. But he was speaking from experience. Owen’s heart ached.

He ripped the sheet off the bed and then slipped into Jamie’s lap. Snapping the sheet, he covered them both with it like a shroud. The flimsy sheet settled around them like a shield. A buffer of cotton and polyester.

Owen pulled Jamie’s head up and he looked him in the eyes. Jamie wasn’t sobbing, but there were tear tracks down his cheeks. His eyelashes were clumped together. He looked achingly fragile and young. Like he had never aged. The weight of his memories shackled him and kept him from outgrowing them.

“Let’s pretend this is the part where I tell you it wasn’t your fault. That you were a child, a victim, and you survived that shit like the badass warrior you are. That what happened to you doesn’t define who you are, and you’re better than all of that.”

Jamie inhaled shakily. “Pretend?”

Owen wiped the tears from his lower lashes. “Yeah, because I know you won’t believe me.” Jamie snorted, a little laugh that made Owen’s heart leap. He loved it when Jamie really smiled.

“You have every right to be afraid of me,” Jamie admitted.

“Wrong,” Owen corrected. “I’m not afraid of you. I’m in awe of you.”

No one ever treated Jamie like he mattered. Likehewas precious. Owen wasn’t sure why the universe, or fate or whatever, decided he was the one to do that for Jamie. But he was.

“If I’m afraid of anything it’s…” Owen cleared his throat, suddenly unable to look at Jamie. He was so close. And everything happened so fast. But Owen made a promise not to flinch.

“I’m afraid of what I feel for you,” Owen finally admitted. “Because it’s so strong and so sudden. I don’t know what to call it. But it’s the scariest, most powerful thing I’ve ever felt.”

Jamie’s lips parted in surprise. His eyes widened fractionally, the lights behind him diluted by the white sheet so that it softened the glow into a warmth that reflected in Jamie’s eyes.

Owen kissed him. He kissed him because he needed to. Because he wanted to. Because never in his life had he understood what it meant for poems to come alive on someone’s lips, but they did when he pressed his to Jamie’s. He kissed him so hard that all Jamie’s faces could feel the kiss, and then even deeper. Deep enough to reach all those dark parts of him, the places that he retreated to where Owen couldn’t find him. He kissed him so that even there in the dark, Owen could still comfort him.

Jamie stilled, lips parted in surprise. But when his arms wrapped around Owen, the kiss changed. Owen grabbed Jamie’s wet cheeks and Jamie held Owen’s hips, and they kissed under their little blanket fort, ignoring the outside world in favor of their bubble of intimacy.