Someone grabbed him before he hit the floor, and he clung to the bodies closing in on him while his heart shattered. He grieved for a boy he’d loved without reservation, and whose death had haunted his every waking hour for ten years. That tiny, distant hope that Brady was still alive and thriving somewhere—always a fantasy at best—dissolved with the force of his tears. He wasn’t the only one crying, and that made it all somehow worse, that his grief was hurting the two men he loved more than anything else in the world. He apologized over and over, and he begged them not to hate him.
He cried himself sick, until he was bent over the toilet, retching up what little he’d eaten at breakfast. Two voices stayed with him, hands constantly caressing him, promising they loved him no matter what. The secret had been slowly poisoning him for a decade; now that he’d lanced the wound, he couldn’t make it stop. Couldn’t keep it in any longer, and he didn’t want to.
At some point, he became aware of a pillow and sheets. They were all back in bed, piled together with Van in the middle,surrounded by love and support, and warm bodies. His eyes were sandy and his nose stuffy. His head hurt. His entire body ached with grief and exhaustion.
“Don’t leave me,” Van whispered.
“Never.” Joshua stroked damp hair off his forehead. “You’re stuck with us.”
“Promise?”
“We promise,” Benji said. “We’ll get through this.”
“As a throuple,” Joshua added.
Van’s short bark of laughter dissolved into a choked sob. “You hate that word.”
“I know, but it made you laugh.”
“Doesn’t feel right to laugh. Ever again.”
“Hey.” Joshua tilted his chin so Van had to look him in the eye. “You kept a devastating secret for a long time, but just because Brady died doesn’t mean you aren’t entitled to live. No matter what happens next, you are allowed to be happy Van Holt.”
“Donovan.” Van hadn’t said that name out loud in ages, either. “My first name’s Donovan. But everyone used to call me Donnie, because Donovan sounded stuck up. Donnie died in that bedroom, though, and I wasn’t anyone until I left home and became Van.”
“And Van is the guy we both fell in love with,” Benji said. He rested his chin on Van’s chest. “He’s the guy we still love and will do anything we can to help get through this. No matter what you want to do.”
As in, do you want to go to Texas and tell the truth?
Did he? He could tell his side of the story, the truth of that final day, but it proved nothing. Van hadn’t seen his father drag Brady out into the desert. He hadn’t seen him strike Brady with a rock. Maybe after the old man tossed him out, Brady had tried to stumble home and really had hit his head by accident? WouldVan’s truth do anything to alleviate the Gibbonses’ pain, or only add to it?
There was no one left to punish except Van.
Maybe I deserve to be punished. Maybe I deserve prison for living freely while he died so painfully. Alone in the desert. Did he die thinking I abandoned him?
“He must have been so scared,” Van said. “I should have tried harder to save him.”
Joshua shook his head sadly. “It’s easy to say that now, but back then? You’d been brutalized and terrorized by your father. An authority figure who was supposed to protect you, not break your hand and destroy your love of music. You did what you had to do in order to save yourself.”
“I could have gone back at any time and told the police what I knew. Hell, I could have done it years ago after my father died, and I didn’t.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know.”
“Yeah, you do.” Joshua cupped his cheek, held him steady. Kept him from breaking apart and flying away. “You know why.”
Van closed his eyes, but couldn’t see Brady’s youthful, smiling face anymore. All he saw was a sun-bleached skull covered in sand. “He was dead, and telling wouldn’t bring him back.”
“Once more, present tense.”
He opened his eyes, looking first at Joshua’s determination, and then at Benji’s strength, and they both helped him find the words. “Brady is dead, and telling won’t bring him back.”
“Sometimes protecting others from the truth is a mercy,” Benji said. “They found his body. Let Brady’s parents grieve and move on, and you do the same.”
“The first person I fell in love with died.” Van choked on the rest of his words, desperate for them to understand without him saying it.
“So you hid your heart away, until we came along. And you took a risk by loving us. Was the risk worth it?”
