Jake nodded but didn’t say anything.
“I’m going to take the first step now. Would it help for me to keep talking? I know, um, when I’ve been... struggling... sometimes it helps when you talk, and I can distract myself by listening to your voice. I don’t know if you know you do that, or if you just do it naturally. But it’s helped me so much.”
“Y-yeah, maybe that would be good?” It should have been a statement, but Jake heard the uncertainty in his voice as though it had been a question.
“Okay,” Rye agreed.
Jake’s stomach dropped as Rye stepped forward and down—just one step, but he seemed to suddenly disappear from Jake’s view as though the fog swallowed him up. Jake’s hand tightened around Rye’s, and Rye started talking quietly.
“I’m going to bring a bunch of different colors of origami paper, I think,” he said, the illusionary fog around him thinning until Jake could see his beautiful blue eyes again. “But I’m hoping the kids use the yellow, because I’m going to tell them the story about Peanut and Butter after they tell me all about the books they read. They’re supposed to read about birds this week, and so...”
Rye kept talking calmly, and he just stood there on that first step, waiting.
It wasn’t awful. And the feeling of dread in the pit of Jake’s stomach didn’t get worse. In fact, maybe it wasn’t quite as bad as usual. Jake listened to Rye talk as he looked down at their joined hands, and when Rye squeezed his hand again and then lifted their hands slowly to his lips and pressed a soft kiss on the back of Jake’s palm, Jake let out a shuddering breath.
“I’m okay, Jake. Your turn to take a step,” Rye said, which was apparently exactly what Jake needed.
He nodded once and got his feet to move, finally shuffling forward the few inches until he was at the edge of the first step. Rye shifted down one more step to give Jake room and then tugged lightly.
“One at a time, okay?”
“Yeah.”
“Oh, I actually didn’t tell you. My mom had the idea. Uncle Jon’s going to help me build a birdhouse. My mom said she used to have a bunch when I was a kid. I don’t really remember, but then she said one year, there was this big windstorm that lasted for days, and...”
Jake listened to Rye’s soft, soothing voice, and he felt Rye’s hand in his, Rye’s thumb caressing back and forth slowly. And hesawRye there, in front of him, solid and real andsafe.
And he finally, finally took a slow step down. One step. One of fifty-three.
His whole body shuddered, and he closed his eyes.
“You did it.” A hand set lightly on the middle of his chest and then slipped around his waist. “You did it, Jake.”
“God, I’m shaking, though,” Jake forced out, and he opened his eyes again to see Rye, looking even shorter than usual since he was down one step lower than Jake. The blue of Rye’s eyes was bright and clear, and Rye smiled and nodded, tightening his arm around Jake’s waist.
“You are. I can feel it. But you did it. And now, you can do one more.”
He sucked in a breath and then huffed it back out with half a laugh. “One more. And then one more. Fifty times over.”
Rye nodded. “You can do it.”
“I . . . can.”
Rye took another step down and squeezed Jake’s hand. “Come on, slowpoke.”
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Rye
RyehelpedJakeallthe way down, slowly, one stair at a time. And when Jake finally stepped onto the wet sand of the beach for the first time in over a year, he nearly collapsed into Rye with what Rye could only interpret as a mixture of exhaustion, relief, and joy.
It was such a beautiful moment, and Rye held Jake for several minutes at the bottom of the stairs as Jake’s large body trembled with all those emotions. Then they stayed there for another few minutes, both silent as they looked out at the ocean.
Rye had no words to describe it. The view was perfect—gentle waves cresting along the short stretch of beach, white foam swelling up from the ocean and then disappearing as bubbles into the sand, sunlight beginning to peek through the fog and light up the water. And the pure joy radiating from Jake matched it, especially when Jake carefully, slowly slipped his arm around Rye’s shoulders and held him a little closer.
All of it was beautiful, and he loved it.
“I understand why you’d come down here every day,” Rye murmured, breaking the silence.
