“Are you taking the bus with me at least?” I tried to stay in step with him. Even his walking speed was different today, making both of us trip when we’d usually be in sync.
A throat clearing had me stopping in my tracks completely. “Actually, I was going to drive you both home today if you’d like.”
Where the fuck did he come from? Jude stood directly in front of us, yet Elio barely looked up. “Oh, uh, why?”
Jude rolled his eyes. “I can’t be nice? You’re my boyfriend’s best friend. I thought I’d extend the offer to you since you’re basically attached at the hip.”
Something felt off about that. I narrowed my eyes, glancing back and forth from Jude to Elio. The way Jude had enunciated theattached at the hippart didn’t sit right with me. “Uh…”
“Take the bus if you want. I was just trying to be nice.”
“No, I’ll come along. If Elio is okay with it?” I phrased it as a question, looking to Elio for support.
He shrugged his shoulders.
Okay, so that was awesome. A super awesome gesture that meant shit without his voice. At least if he spoke, I’d be able to hear any apprehension in his voice.
I followed them to the parking lot. Elio sat in the front with Jude, and I opened the rear door only to have a sudden, racing chill crawl down my spine.
Mom’s painting lay across the back seat, no longer covered like the last time I saw it. Elio had put his entire soul into the beautiful blue jay, taking extra care and adding detail to give the wings the perfect texture. Now, pieces of wings were scattered on the car floorboard.
Mangled fragments of the canvas were shredded everywhere, some of them looking wet and caked with dirt that’dturned into mud. It was ruined. Completely, utterly ruined. Something so special, now nothing more than scraps.
I cradled a piece of the canvas in my palm and looked at the back of Elio’s headrest. “What the fuck is this? What happened?”
From where I was standing, I could see a frown tug at Jude’s side profile. “Oh, that? Yeah, El here got a little angry and carried away. I thought he cleaned it up already.” He looked back, glancing at the mess for barely a second.
Shaking my head, I tried and failed to make sense of it. Why, though? After all the hard work he’d put into it?
“Just shove it to the side and get in. I need to get home soon. You know how parents are, yeah?”
Elio stayed silent. I couldn’t see him from here. I couldn’t gauge his facial expressions or if Jude was telling the truth. It was hard to believe, but what did I know?
We’d been talking less lately, despite being around each other all the time. It was fucking maddening how easily he shut down around me now. I wasn’t used to a quiet Elio; I was used to the Elio who wouldn’t shut the fuck up and laughed way too loud in the library because he thought I was the funniest person alive. He rarely even joined us for dinner anymore, which hurt the most, honestly.
I wanted to know what was going on, but I didn’t want to push him too hard if he was going through something and wanted space.
Elio had changed in a lot of ways, and I had no idea what I was supposed to do. I just knew that, no matter what, I’d always love him. Even if it broke me.
I just hoped it wouldn’t break him.
Chapter Eight
I cleared my throat,which only forced a cough instead of making room for my voice. A nine-year weight liquified itself into my veins, settling thick and heavy in every inch of my body. It was everywhere. The memories were everywhere. I couldn’t escape them, and neither could he. But at least I got to escape the creator; Elio still lived with him.
“Are the burgers done?”
“Huh?” I forced myself to look at him despite the way I wanted to cringe from the bruises around his eyes and cheekbones. “Oh, yeah. I’ll bring our plates to the table.”
The wooden circle of despair was a sad excuse for a dining table, but it was mine all the same. I placed our plates and took a seat while Elio put the frozen broccoli back in the freezer.
Under the limited light I had in my apartment, helooked worn down. Exhaustion seeped out of his pores and into the world around him, damn near infecting me too. I wanted to shoulder it all, take it from his body and place it directly into mine to deal with instead of him.
Though we hadn’t officially been friends in almost a decade, there wasn’t much I wasn’t willing to do to help him. Seeing him faded and jaded, underneath the thumb of some wicked and evil man, tore at me in a way I never expected.
When he sat directly in front of me and all but inhaled his first bite of the burger, I wondered if what I saw in front of me was true. He ate like a starving man, barely pausing between bites, just like he did at the restaurant we went to the other day. It was hard not to notice that he was thinner than I remembered, but I originally chalked that up to changing through adulthood. Now, I wasn’t so sure.
“Oh my god, sour cream and onion chips.” Elio spoke with a full mouth, groaning as he shoved a few into his mouth. “I haven’t had these in like seven years, dude.” Another one, despite still chewing the rest.
