I ducked my head, feeling embarrassed by the compliment. I didn’t take them well, I never had.
I heard Yoss chuckle and he dropped his hands from my shoulders. “Let’s go see what we can do with the day. It looks like it’s going to be a hot one. I hope you know how to swim.”
“Yeah, I can swim.”
“Good, because I know just the place to go,” he said.
For now we were only two teenagers hanging out.
My day had seemed bleak when I woke up.
Now…not so much.
Present Day
He looked at me like I was a ghost. And to him, maybe I was.
A part of a past he had let go of.
Because he had purposefully kept his distance. He had decided that I had no part in his life.
“What are you doing here?” he asked. He winced and I knew it hurt for him to speak.
Of the hundreds of things he could have asked me, what I was doing there seemed woefully insufficient.
No,hey, how’s it going?
Or,whatcha been up to the last fifteen years?
His question was almost accusatory.
“I work here,” I said, sitting back in my chair. I realized I was still holding his hand and dropped it quickly.
His green eyes flared to life and then died. It was the saddest thing I had ever seen.
He tried to turn his head away from me, but his injuries made movement difficult. Yoss sucked in a breath and closed his eyes.
“Oh,” was all he said. The tears that had been falling down his face dried and disappeared. Like they never existed. As though I had imagined them.
I hadn’t known what to expect when he opened his eyes.
I did know that I hadn’t prepared myself for the frosty greeting he was giving me.
At one time I had been able to read Yoss clearly. He never hid his emotions from me. He loved openly. He despaired loudly. He raged forcefully.
He had fed me his dreams and I had given him mine. There wasn’t a piece of his soul that I didn’t recognize and claim as my own.
At one time we had been two pieces of the same messed up puzzle. He learned my secrets and I discovered the ones he had guarded so fiercely.
But this man—I didn’t know him. His green eyes were cold. Resentful.
His jaw was tense and his hands were fists.
“Yoss, what happened?” I asked.
He ignored me, staring past me. Through me. I might as well not have been there at all.
“Yoss!” I said a little louder. I gripped my pen, the cold metal bit into my skin. “Please. I just want to know who did this to you.”
