"Thank you for going in there alone, without Alex," I whisper.
Ennio does not answer, he only sends me a brief look. It seems to express nothing, and yet I know. He understands, he truly understands me. And that gives me enough strength to survive the next few minutes, maybe days.
Everything will be a fight now, a fight for one more day, because the alternative is ending everything. What stands between me and that is a thin layer of hope for…
Revenge.
And Alex.
ALEX
All weekend long Bay doesn’t answer my texts. I try calling, but he won’t pick up.
I finally call his dad and ask if I can come by, but he tells me Bay is a little under the weather and is staying in his room to recover over the weekend.
It is not until Monday morning, when his parents pull into my driveway, that I see Bay again.
I know right away that Bay did not tell his parents anything, because they are both in perfectly normal moods, and his dad even asks me how the Halloween party went. I tell him it wasn’t great, but that Bay played beautifully.
Bay himself sits motionless, staring out the window and avoiding looking in my direction, and he is pale, dressed in a black hoodie and black jeans, his hair tied back in a messy way, loose strands dark red like dried blood falling across his cheeks.
We get out in front of the school, and Bay looks around carefully before stepping away from the car, only then heading toward the building, and I walk right behind him, unsure what I should say or do, feeling the enormous distance coming from him.
As always, we are early, so when we enter the classroom there are no other students yet, and I use the chance to say,
"Bay… I was so worried, when you didn’t answer my texts, I thought you…" I can’t finish the sentence.
He puts his backpack beside the desk and sits down, pulls out his tablet, and says nothing.
I can’t take it, I crouch beside him, trying to force him to look at me, and he finally does, his eyes incredibly dark and impossible to read.
"Will you tell me what happened," I blurt out, my voice shaking, "…back there?"
"What do you think?" he says through clenched teeth.
The ground nearly slips from under my feet, I lose balance in my crouch and drop to my knees. My lungs tighten and I have to reach for my inhaler.
"Bay… I don’t know what to say. I’m so, so sorry… Thank you sounds so flat, so not enough, but I still want to thank you, your sacrifice… you did that for me…" tears spill down my face, "what can I do for you now, please tell me," and lately it feels like all I do is cry, but I simply cannot help it, because the pain is ripping me apart, the guilt and the grief crushing my lungs. I cough painfully.
Bay turns his eyes away, his face strangely motionless.
"Let’s just forget about it and leave it behind us and never go back to that topic again, Alex."
"Bay, but…" I squeeze my eyes shut. "Why did you do it? Why?"
"Because I was already broken, and you weren’t. I was the logical choice."
"I don’t understand…"
Bay sighs lightly, with a bit of strain.
"There is something I always wanted to tell you, but I simply didn’t have the courage, though I think you should know it to understand something about me and so you don’t take mybehavior personally," he says slowly, almost carefully choosing each word.
"I don’t understand," I whisper, "what didn’t you have the courage to tell me?"
"This isn’t the first time something like this happened, Alex. You could say I’m a veteran."
And suddenly he looks straight at me and his eyes are filled with something bottomless, like a wound that never healed, a wound that swallowed his soul and replaced it with horror, and for a moment I see it, the flash of that abyss.
