“Yeah. Manic is magic, baby. Didn’t Rita tell you?”
He smiles... like, really smiles, and despite my worry for him burning a hole in my gut, I can’t help but grin back. “No, she didn’t mention it. I googled it, though, and I’ve got leaflets, remember? Seems like a good time, for a little while, at least.”
“It is. Kind of. But it’s lonely because no one can keep up, you know?”
“I don’t know, Ludo. Tell me.”
“You won’t understand.”
“Do I need to? Or can I just listen?”
That seems to stump him, and he doesn’t speak for a while. I give in and reach for a sponge to wash the dirt from his skin, and he pays me no heed as I rub soap over his shoulders and shampoo into his hair.
“Your hair’s full of leaves,” I say.
He hums. “I think I thought about flying but decided it was easier to roll down the hill.”
My heart stills. “Flying.”
“Yeah, I went to the railway bridge.” Ludo turns in the bath, sloshing water over the side. His cheeks are stained pink from the heat, and his eyes are starting to droop from whatever concoction Rita and her pal have shot into him. “I always go there when I need to remember why I didn’t die the last time I jumped from there.”
I cup water in my hand and pour it over his head, smoothing the shampoo out. The railway bridge is high and craggy and has been on my horizon for as long as I’ve been alive. Another fissure in my heart cracks open. “You go there to remember you can’t fly?”
“Something like that. I think. I go there a lot when I’m okay, and Rita says I shouldn’t go when I’m manic, but I didn’t try to fly, Aidan. I didn’t want to.”
“What did you want?”
He winces. “I can’t remember.”
“Probably doesn’t matter then. Next time, though, why don’t you wait for me to come with you? That way we can figure out a way to get down that doesn’t get you all dirty.”
“I like being dirty.”
“I know, mate, but this ain’t the good kind.”
“Do you still want to do the good kind with me?”
I stare at him, curled up naked in the bath, vulnerable, confused, and trusting me so completely my heart feels like it’s gonna fucking explode at any moment. “Always.”
“It would be okay if you didn’t.”
“Well I do, so I don’t give a shit what would be okay if I didn’t. It’s not fucking relevant.”
“I need to feed Bella.”
“You fed her already.”
“When?”
“You brought her home between marathon hikes.”
It’s Ludo’s turn to stare, and I have no idea what he’s thinking. What he’s feeling. And I hate that most of all—the possibility that he might be scared and I don’t know it. That he might need me more than I’ll ever know without realising how much I need him too.
I push his wet hair back and squeeze water from the ends. “You told me you loved me yesterday. Do you have any idea how much I love you too?”
Twenty-Eight
Ludo
