“Yeah.” There it was, that hoarse tone; he was choking something back. “You’re incredible, Alex.”
“Sixty percent output,” I sighed, and my vision blurred. “It really changes the game.”
“It does.”
The lights were too bright, and Leo standing there was starting to give me anxiety. I patted the spot beside me, not entirely sure if I actually touched the wooden bench or not.
“Please sit down. I need something to lean on right now; literally.”
Leo was beside me in an instant, and I could tell that he was putting out more heat than usual. He bumped his shoulder against mine, letting the warmth bleed in. It was too much. Every emotion, all at once. I was exhausted, and Joon sat in the back of my mind. His funeral — that empty box. Chin-Hae wasbad, but they couldn’t even find a piece of Joon after the fire that took him.
Charred skin, missing facial features, hollow eyes.
That’s what Joon would have looked like, too, before he was turned to ash.
I didn’t notice when Leo had wrapped his arm around my shoulders, or when my face was buried in his shirt sleeve. It took until my face was wet to realize that I was sobbing. That didn’t break me, though. I knew it was coming; I knew it would be difficult the moment I was told that Chin-Hae had died in a fire. This was expected, it was normal; it was healthy.
What shocked me, what ripped into my core and made everything come crashing down, was Leo. He held me tighter, his fingers digging in almost enough to hurt. When I looked up, his head was down, and that ash blond hair dusted in his eyes, creating a shadow.
It wasn’t enough to hide his pain, though.
I had never seen Leo cry, couldn’t even picture the image until now. It wasn’t messy, wet hiccups, or rivers of tears creating puddles on his lap. Leo’s eyes were squeezed shut, and his lashes were wet. Short breaths made his chest fall uneven and ragged, and every muscle in his body was tense.
Talking made me feel better, but Leo wasn’t me. I took a risk and put my hand at the back of his head. His hair was softer than I would have thought, and when I ran my fingers through it, his grip on my arm went lax. Touch could be a language, too. A way to communicate pain, or heartache. When he lowered his head even more, making it so that I didn’t have to stretch, that was his way of talking.
I scratched at his scalp with my nails, pressed my thumb into the muscles of his neck, and watched as he deflated. It had taken three years for me to grieve, but Leo hadn’t even started.
How could he if he doesn’t have anyone to grieve with?
Somehow, he ended up nearly crushing me on the bench. He’d leaned into my touch, letting his heavyweight settle against me. I didn’t mind, though. This time, I had my arm wrapped around him, rubbing circles into his shoulders and playing with his hair, doing anything I could to melt away the stone exterior.
“Alex,” Doctor B bent down with a whisper as he nodded to Leo. He’d fallen asleep with his head on my shoulder. “You can release it now. You did well—the family was able to see him again for nearly two hours. Their last memory of him will be of him sleeping, healthy and glowing.”
I glanced down at Leo, his cheek smushed against my collarbone, and noticed the wet streak on my shirt from his silent tears.
“Two hours can make the difference of a lifetime,” I said.
Joon was gone regardless, but there was that hole inside of me, and the one I knew that Leo had, too. If we’d gotten two hours, would things be different now?
NINETEEN
LEO
Two extremely strangethings happened to me today.
The first was that I’d cried, and not only that, butin frontof someone—Alex. I wasn’t sure how to feel, couldn’t even wrap my mind around it or remember the last time Ihadcried. There was no time, because the second strange thing was that I was standing in Alex’s apartment.
This is definitely breaking the ‘stay away’ rule.
It was small, but in a cozy way, not in a steel-walls-surrounding-me-at-all-angles way. I’d barely made it through the doorway; she had to invite me intwice,likeI was some sort of vampire. My intention was to be a gentleman, save some sort of face, and make sure she got home okay. That was my only goal, swear to God.
Good job walking her home, Leo. Bad job walking inside of said home.
I wasn’t supposed to be here; every cell in my body screamed to run. But my scalp was still tingling from when she’d run her fingers through my hair, and I was on cloud nine. Every day, I was getting closer and closer to identifying as a dog. The whole petting thing? I understood. Fantastic experience, ten out of ten.
Alex rushed into the kitchen as if she hadn’t expended a serious amount of power, acting as if I belonged in her living room, and started cooking. Why was she cooking?
Maybe she’s hungry, idiot.
