"Then I'll wake you up," I promise. "I will. But you need to rest. You need to be strong tomorrow. Tomorrow will be a bad day."
He doesn't move to his own bed across the room. He just curls up beside me on mine, careful not to jostle my arm, positioning himself so he's not touching it. And I don't tell him to go. I don't want him to go. I want to hold onto this, these last hours of being together, before the world tears us apart.
I stay awake all night, watching the moonlight move across the floor as the hours pass, feeling Ivan's breathing slow and deepen as he finally drifts off into exhausted sleep. The pain in my arm never fades, just pulses on and on like a second heartbeat, constant and terrible.
I think about tomorrow. I think about the teacher who will see me cradling my arm and know immediately that something is wrong. I think about the phone call to social services, the police maybe, the questions I won't be able to answer without making things worse for both of us.
And I think about Ivan, asleep beside me, trusting me to make this okay even though I can't. Even though I've failed him in the worstpossible way. Even though my attempt to protect him has only ensured that we'll be separated.
I'll find you, I think, staring at the ceiling in the darkness. I don't care how long it takes. I don't care what I have to do. I don't care where they send you or where they send me.
I'll find you.
It's the only promise I have left to give.
Chapter 7: Ivan
Jay wakes me up before dawn, his good hand on my shoulder, shaking me gently out of a dream I can't remember but that felt safe and warm. For a moment I don't know where I am or what's happening. My mind is still foggy with sleep, still reaching for the remnants of whatever peace I'd found in unconsciousness. And then I see his face hovering above me in the dim light, and everything from last night comes flooding back in a terrible rush.
Oh my God, his arm.
The sound it made when it broke—that awful crack, that snap like breaking a tree branch. The way he screamed, a sound I've never heard from him before, a sound I never want to hear again.
"Hey," he says, and his voice is rough, scratchy, and raw like he hasn't slept at all, like he's spent the whole night awake and in pain. He probably hasn't slept. How could he sleep with his arm broken like that? "We need to get ready for school."
I sit up slowly and look at him. What I see makes my chest hurt so badly I can barely breathe. He's pale, like all the blood has drained out of him and left behind just a shell. There are dark circles under his eyes, deep purple-black bruises of exhaustion that make him look years older than fourteen. A sheen of sweat covers his forehead even though the room is cold, even though I can see my breath in the air.
He's hurting bad.
His left arm is cradled against his chest protectively, and even through his sleeve I can see that it's swollen. The fabric stretched tight over something that's the wrong shape entirely, something that shouldn't be there. He looks like he might pass out at any moment, like he's holding onto consciousness through sheer force of will, but he's standing, he's moving, he's trying to act like everything is normal when nothing will ever be normal again.
"Jay, you can't go to school like this. You need a doctor. You need help. You need—"
"I know what I need," he cuts me off, but he's trying to be gentle despite the interruption, patient even through what must be unimaginable pain. "And I know what's going to happen when I walk into that building with my arm like this. But I don't have a choice, Ivan. If I don't show up, if I stay home, they'll come looking anyway. Someone will notice I'm missing. At least this way, I control when it happens. I get to walk in on my own two feet instead of being dragged in by police or paramedics. I get to choose how this all ends today."
I want to argue with him but I don't have the words, can't find them through the panic that's rising in my throat. He's right and we both know it. There's no version of today that doesn't end with someone seeing his arm and making a phone call.
The only question is how it happens and when.
"Okay," I say, because there's nothing else to say. "Okay, let's get ready for school."
We get dressed in silence. Jay struggles with his shirt, trying to get his broken arm through the sleeve without moving it too much. I help him as carefully as I can, my hands trembling. I hold the fabric open so he can slide into it.
Every small movement makes him wince, makes his breath catch and hitch in his throat. By the time he's dressed he's breathing hard, and there's fresh sweat beading on his face and running down his temples.
"Do I look okay?" he asks, and there's something almost funny about the question. Like he's asking about a haircut or a new pair of jeans instead of whether he looks like a kid with a broken arm trying to pretend he doesn't have a broken arm. Trying to pretend he's fine when he's so obviously not fine.
"You look like hell," I tell him honestly, because lying seems pointless now. Because we're past the point where pretty lies can help us.
"Well, we're in hell," he says, and he laughs, this short painful sound that's more like a cough.
We walk to the kitchen together, moving slowly because Jay can't move any other way. Mrs. Henderson is there already, standing by the coffee maker in her bathrobe, and she looks at us with flat, empty eyesthat show nothing—no concern, no guilt, no acknowledgment of what happened in this house last night.
She knows what happened. She must know.
She knows what's going to happen today. But she doesn't say anything, doesn't offer to help, doesn't ask if Jay needs to see a doctor, doesn't even pretend to care. She just watches us grab a piece of bread each from the counter and walk out the front door like we're ghosts she can see right through.
The walk to the bus stop takes twice as long as usual. Jay is moving like every step costs him something. Like he's spending energy he doesn't have, his broken arm pressed tight against his body and his good hand clenched into a fist at his side.
