“As with many entitled dude bros,” I continued, “Apollo lost his shit when Cassandra rejected him and cursed her so that no one would believe her prophesies. So here’s poor Cassie, wandering around ancient Greece, telling everyone Troy is going to burn, and no one believes her. They all think she’s crazy, and they even lock her up. See where I’m going with this?”
“You’re the reincarnation of a Greek goddess?”
“Let’s examine the evidence, shall we?” I ticked off my fingers. “I’m ridiculously hot. They all think I’m crazy. I’m locked up in here. And no one believes what I say.” I smiled gently in the silvery dimness. “Including you when I say you’re going to be okay when I’m gone.”
“You’re right,” Milo said, tears rushing back to choke his words. “I don’t believe you.”
Shit.
He turned his back to me again. The comet streak of good feeling faded to black. No one would ever accuse me of being the comforting type, and I was running out of ideas.
Milo cried softly, trembling as ifhewere cold, and a memory—my only good memory from Alaska—came back to me. It snuck up and wrapped its arms around me, and I felt better instantly.
I climbed out of bed and sidled up next to Milo, squishing myself against him.
“Get off me,” he whined. “I’m not one of your boyfriends.”
“I’m not coming on to you,” I said. “When I was in Alaska, another guy did this for me. It helped. But I won’t if—”
Milo grabbed my arm and held on tight, his body shaking with silent sobs. I moved in closer, spooning him, and put my blond head on the pillow next to his dark one.
After a few moments, he sniffed and said softly, “Alaska. That’s where you were sent for conversion therapy? Before you came here?”
I stiffened. “Yes.”
“You hardly mention it. Not even in group. Unless they make you.”
“You must be special then.”
I felt Milo smile, a loosening of tension in his skinny body. “What happened?”
“I was freezing,” I said. “We all were, huddled on the floor of an old cabin, no fire and the wind blowing in through the cracks. I’d never been more miserable or alone than I was in that moment. Then one of the other boys brought his shitty blanket to where I was lying under my shitty blanket. He hugged me like I’m hugging you.”
“What was his name?”
“Silas. His name was Silas.”
“Do you still talk to him?”
“No.”
“Why not? Did you lose touch? What’s his last name?”
“Doesn’t matter.”
It did matter. It mattered a whole fucking lot, but as much as I cared about making Milo feel better, Silas Marsh was off-limits. If I shared too much of him, he wouldn’t be mine anymore. He existed mostly in my journals. Stories. My endless writing where I tried to purge myself of Alaska until my hand cramped and tears blurred the ink on the page.
But there was always more.
My parents had sent me to Alaska in the name of “fixing” their broken son, but it’d nearly destroyed my already tentative hold on sanity. They knew their mistake the instant I came back, bruised and hysterical. A year in Sanitarium du lac Léman was their way of trying to put me back together, but it was too late. What happened in Alaska was now woven into my marrow. My cells and bones. A cold that would never let me go.
I tightened my arm around Milo. “It was forbidden for us to touch, but Silas lay down with me to try to keep me warm anyway. It only happened that one night, but he saved my life.”
And I never told him. I should have told him.
“Why just the one night?” Milo asked.
“We got caught. They beat the hell out of us. Him mostly. They beat the hell out of him.”
