Dante felt him leave the barn. Counted to ten.
He got to seven before the pull in his gut was too strong to ignore and followed Sid outside.
6
The sun had gone in while they’d been inside. In fact, it had disappeared behind the clouds the moment Dante had left the gardens with his probation officer. Sid didn’t much believe in signs, but it was an omen he couldn’t seem to ignore.
He sensed Dante at his back as he walked towards the lake. The house was busy with school trips and old people out for their fresh air and tea cakes, but Sid knew the grounds like the back of his hand, and there were a dozen places they could go where they wouldn’t be disturbed.
The abandoned heron watching post was his favourite. It had a broad tree trunk he could lean against while he dipped his legs in the cool water.
He didn’t do that today, though. He just sat and waited for Dante to join him.
Dante crouched at the lake edge, dangling his fingers in the crystal-clear water. He kept his back to Sid, but Sid didn’t mind, save the fact he enjoyed looking at Dante’s face. “Sorry I dumped that on you. Maybe you didn’t need to know.”
“I didn’t need to know unless it was the best thing for you,” Dante said. “You don’t owe me an explanation for anything that happens at work.”
“Not even if I trip and send you flying too?”
Dante finally looked at him. “You’re never close enough for that to happen.”
Not by choice.Sid pursed his lips.Fuck, don’t say that.“Whatever. I just mean it’s not fair to not tell you why I am the way I am.”
For once, Dante’s face disagreed with Sid far more than words ever could. And he said nothing, apparently engrossed with the lake water dripping from his fingertips.
Frustration bubbled in Sid’s gut. “Do you know why they hired you?”
“To help you.”
“Yeah, butwhy? I’ve worked here for five years, so why now?”
“Because something happened,” Dante said without the inflection of a question. “Something that made however you were doing this before unworkable.”
Sid laughed without humour. “I lost sensation in the entire left side of my body and dropped face-first into a muddy puddle. I was alone at the time. Benjamin didn’t find me until three hours later. I had hypothermia by then, which turned into bronchitis, and I couldn’t breathe without help for a week after.”
“When did this happen?”
“Six months ago. It was the worst relapse I’ve ever had.”
“Relapse?”
“That’s the type of MS I have—relapsing and remitting. It’s supposed to mean it comes and goes, but some symptoms are permanent.”
Dante nodded slowly. “I don’t know anything about MS.”
“Don’t google it. My sister did that and now she thinks she’s the wiki of every weird thing that happens to me.”
“I’ve never googled anything,” Dante said. “Reading to learn is new to me, so it doesn’t always occur to me to do it.”
“You’re not a bookworm?”
“What do you think?”
That you’re too complex for me to think anything and be right. “I think you could be if something interested you enough.”
Dante laughed. It was short and sweet but lit up Sid’s world all the same. “I read books about gardening when I was inside. Nothing else, though. I told you, it’s a new thing. I couldn’t read, actually, until I was eleven.”
“Why not?”
