Page 54 of The Intimacy of Skin

“Are you okay?” What a stupid fucking question to ask.

“Who hurt you? Why did you run away? Why didn’t you answer our calls?

” Crew was still holding the mysterious black box.

I couldn’t stop looking at the blood on his face, or the way his hair had darkened and turned into thick, unruly curls from the snow.

The left side of his mouth turned up in a sick form of amusement, as if making me worry like that was funny to him.

I wasn’t laughing. I was fucking terrified and borderline angry at him for doing that to us. Leaving us to think he was frozen in a ditch somewhere. The dried, cracking blood beneath his nose only made me angrier. I wanted so desperately to believe he’d kept his promise.

He put distance between us, forcing me on the other side of my dinner table as he set the black box down. He wouldn’t look at me, though I began to think it was because he couldn’t with the way his eye was starting to swell. “I’m fine. Ran into some trouble, but an old… friend helped me out.”

The chair he began to pull out scraped against the ground. It burst around the room, shocking the silence between us. “Did you work?”

That got his attention. Crew’s head shot up, his face morphing into a pained scowl. I could see how much effort it took for him to do. He winced as he did it, his brows jumping down sharply before relaxing into a frown. “No. I wouldn’t fucking do that. Not after the promise I made all of you.”

“Willow was terrified. It wasn’t until we were almost out of options, and the snow was about to cave us in that she mentioned it.

” I pulled a chair out for myself, never taking my eyes off him as I sat.

“I didn’t think you would, but how would I know?

Willow knows you better than I do, and it was that or start checking for fucking bodies. ”

The anger was back, bubbling and boiling just beneath my diaphragm.

Crew heard it in my voice. I could tell.

He kept a strong face even when he sank further into his seat.

“You scared the shit out of us. We had to imagine the unimaginable because you just ran. Fucking left without a word during a goddamn snowstorm. Seeing Tobias cry like that?” The fresh scratches on my arms burned beneath my shirt sleeves.

They ached to be reopened, simmering alongside my terror.

“He said it was his fault. He looked so fucking guilty.”

A soft whimper had me zeroing in on Crew.

The mention of Tobias had done him in. I looked at his eyes, my chest aching with what I saw.

Earthquakes and lava, tornadoes, and destruction clashed together in them.

He bit down on his bottom lip as it quivered.

I watched as he took a deep breath through his nose, making a sniffling sound like blood was blocking his nostrils.

“I’m sorry.” His voice wavered, ending on a cough as he tried to clear it away.

“I ran because of what Tobi said. He knows me, and I didn’t recognize him until he told me some things that scrambled my stupid fucking brain.

One second, Tobi was a weird stranger who avoided me more often than not, and the next, he was someone who knew some of the worst parts of me. ”

He took the lid off the black box, setting it gingerly on the table.

“It broke me for a while. I ran because that’s what I’m good at.

I pretend there isn’t an issue, so I don’t have to remember it.

I ran for a long time, and when I took a break, some dude tried to hire me.

I told him no, said I wasn’t working anymore, and he punched me pretty good. ”

The table squeaked beneath my grip. I was holding on for dear life, silently begging the anger to recede. Crew had been hurt again, and I wasn’t there to help him.

“I’m okay,” he promised. “A friend of mine and his boyfriends came to the rescue and talked some sense into me for the second time. There are things about my past and why I am the way I am that I want to tell you about, but I can’t.

I physically can’t. My throat gets tight, and my body goes into a panic, and I just—” I could hear the frustration in the wobbly sigh he gave.

“I can’t speak them. Not to Willow, not to my mom, and not to you.

One of my friends said he wrote his past out for his boyfriends, and that gave me an idea.

“When I was a kid, I journaled a lot. I always had notebooks upon notebooks filled with my days and emotions. I wrote down the shit I couldn’t say to my mom or anyone else.

Doing that made it feel like I had someone to talk to when I usually wouldn’t be caught dead talking about any of it.

This box”—he held it gingerly in his hands, cradling it as if it would break at the slightest gust of air—“I’ve kept it with me.

It holds a million memories. Some are of my mom, or Willow, or stupid shit from childhood.

I also hid three out of the dozens of notebooks I wrote as a kid in here.

One for each summer at Tiger Claw Camp. I stopped journaling after the third and final summer. ”

He lifted each journal out of the box, along with a single folded rectangle of paper. I switched from looking at his face to looking at the notebooks as he placed them in order. They were all different colors and all equally as beat up as the last.

An oppressive, dark pressure started in my chest. It crawled around, positioning itself on each of my vital organs. Something thick and heavy, matching the energy of the spiral notebooks that sat in front of me. Crew’s life and truth sat there, written on those pages.

“You want me to read them?” I asked, unsure if I was worth the honor of knowing.

Crew nodded anyway, seemingly sure of his decision. “I want to share the darkest parts of me with you, Price. Where all this is hard and painful, you’re gentle and peaceful. I know I can trust you. You’ve shown me time after time that you’re worth the risk, no matter how scared I am.”

Something had changed in Crew. That much, I knew. I had noticed it a while ago, a rejoicing knowledge that maybe, just maybe, I could make him happy, and we could have a chance.

I had no idea just how much he’d begun to trust me. How much he’d started to enjoy our time together—not just when we were skin to skin, but enough that he wanted more from me. Enough to share what formed the chains I saw in his eyes.

Taking the first notebook, I nodded toward him with determination. “You’re worth it, too, Pretty Boy. Before I read these, I just want you to know that no matter what, I have always liked you. You’re the most important person to me, and nothing will change that.”

“I hope you mean that.” Crew stood up slowly.

“I’ve never wanted anyone so much that I was willing to imagine a future with them.

With you, I think that might be possible, and every bit of it is coated with something so sweet, I’m not sure it even exists.

I can’t see punishment with you, and that doesn’t scare me as much as it used to. ”

The pressure slowly lifted from my chest just as the fire inside of me began to mellow.

For the first time tonight, I wasn’t fighting to keep myself from scratching.

For the second time, hope was spreading through my bones, a sickly sweet and warm feeling that made me think everything would be okay.

Please, God, let everything be okay.

I reached over the table to place a hand on top of his. “I have never meant anything more.”

With that, Crew left to take a shower. He said he didn’t want to be around while I read the notebooks, and he refused to let me treat his wounds.

He was exhausted and claimed they weren’t as bad as they looked.

The only reason I let him go was because of the look on his face, and the obvious way he was leaning to the side, close to falling asleep on his feet.

With the night’s events being so chaotic, he’d forgotten to bring Pilly the pillow. He’d frowned when he realized that, but quickly waved it off, claiming he’d figure it out.

Before diving into the notebooks, I texted Willow to let her know Crew was with me and that he was okay. I told her not to reach out to him for now because he was pretty exhausted, which wasn’t a lie. She agreed, too relieved that he was safe to argue.

When I had nothing else to do except read what was laid out in front of me, I took everything over to the couch. With nothing but a lamp lighting my way, I turned the page, quickly realizing I had no idea what I was getting myself into.

June 2014

Things are getting hard for Mama. I knew that, of course.

Don’t think I ever thought too hard on it, though.

Mama says since I’m a real teenager now, I should be old enough to go away for a while.

I didn’t know what she meant at first. It kinda made me worry I did something I wasn’t supposed to.

I found out she meant summer camp! I’d be going away all through summer break, and Mama says it’s gonna be real fun with lots of other kids my age and lots of swimming and sports.

I’ve heard of summer camp before. Other kids at school go, and they talk about how fun it is, so I’m mighty excited. I hope we play games there.

Mama surprised me today by taking me to get my hair did just like hers. We turned it bleached blond. We match now! Mama said I look real handsome like this and I think so too.

I go to camp tomorrow and there ain’t no TV or nothing, so I thought I’d start a whole new notebook so I can write when I’m bored. A whole notebook just for summer camp.

Here we go!

The beginning seemed innocuous enough. An excited kid, ready to go to summer camp for the first time. Crew’s handwriting was neat even then, which made me smile. At the bottom of the page, he’d drawn what looked to be a lake and some trees with grass all around it.