The fire burned down to a nest of red coals, all the big logs gone except one, which glowed like an exposed bone. The wind had shifted again, bringing in a draft cold enough to make the blanket matter, but Bo hadn’t shivered in half an hour.
Instead, he just stared at the fire, eyes glazed and wet, his whole body wound tight as a snare drum. He was quiet for a long time, and I let him be. There were words for it, but none that did any good.
Behind us, the house buzzed with the cleanup of Sunday dinner. Silverware clinked, cabinets slammed, the sound of Ransom arguing with Ma over Tupperware echoed through the open window. But out here, around the fire, it was just us and the ghosts.
Bo’s breathing changed first—got shallow, shaky, like he was prepping to swallow something sharp. He turned his head afraction, just enough to see if I was watching, then looked away, back to the coals.
I waited.
“Can I tell you something?” he said, voice so flat it barely crested the wind.
“Always,” I told him.
He nodded, wiped his nose on the back of his hand, then wrapped his arms around his knees. The movement made the blanket slip down his back, and I readjusted it without thinking.
Bo glanced at me, then at the house. His jaw worked, teeth biting down so hard I could see the muscle twitch. When he spoke, he didn’t look at me, just let it fall into the dark.
“It didn’t start bad,” he said. “With Westbrook. I know what everybody thinks, but the first few weeks—he was just loud, you know? Not mean, not at first. He’d buy me drinks, fix my bike when I trashed it, call me every night just to talk. I thought he was the only person who ever really saw me.”
I stayed silent. Let him have the air.
“Then I moved in with him, in Portland. Thought I could make it work. He said all I had to do was listen, be good, and he’d take care of me. And he did, at first. Made me breakfast, bought me paints, let me tag along with his friends even when they hated my guts.”
He paused, staring into the fire so long I wondered if he’d lost the thread. But then he picked up again, voice brittle as the glass under my skin from earlier.
“The rules were funny, at first. Stand when he came into the room. Always ask before going out. He’d call me ‘boy,’ but it was a joke. Until it wasn’t. Until every time I fucked up, he’d—” Bo stopped, swallowed, then started again. “He’d correct me. Sometimes just a smack, or a grab. But if I really got it wrong…”
His hands shook, and he tucked them between his knees.
“He started locking me in the closet,” he said, quiet. “Said it was to teach me patience. Sometimes for a few hours, sometimes overnight. Once, after I left a mess in the kitchen, it was three days. No food, no water. Just a pillow and a bucket.”
I felt my hands clench, nails digging into the blanket, but I kept my voice even. “Why didn’t you leave?”
He laughed, sharp and dry. “Because I was a dumbass. Because every time I packed a bag, he’d be there, waiting. He’d say, ‘You can run, Bo, but nobody else will want you.’ And I believed it.”
A pause. The wind picked up, showering sparks out across the grass.
“He started bringing his friends over. Sometimes just to watch TV, sometimes…” He trailed off, knuckles white. “Sometimes to share. If I’d pissed him off that day, he’d make me serve drinks in my boxers. If I really pissed him off, he’d tell me to kneel in the corner while they played cards. Once, he made me blow one of his buddies because I burned dinner. He said it was payment for his gambling debt. He laughed the whole time.”
The words hit harder than any punch I’d taken in a decade. I tried to breathe, but my lungs didn’t want to play along.
Bo’s voice went even smaller. “Do you remember when I came back to town about a year ago? I asked you if I could crash at your place, begged you not to tell my family?”
I nodded, couldn’t trust myself to talk.
“Because I thought maybe, if I could do what you wanted, you’d keep me. Not because you had to, or because I was yours to fuck with, but because you wanted to. Because it was a choice.”
He wiped his eyes, leaving black smears from the charcoal of the fire.
“That night, when I called you from the payphone? I was hiding. He’d passed out after a party, and I knew if I waited until morning, I’d never get out. So I grabbed my keys, took whatmoney I could find, and just left. Didn’t even take my clothes. I drove all night, scared shitless, thinking he’d be right behind me. But he didn’t come. Not then.”
He looked at me for the first time, and the pain in his eyes was a living thing. “I waited for you to be pissed. To send me packing. But you didn’t. You just gave me a hot meal, a shower, and a place to sleep where I didn’t have to worry about someone beating me up or attacking me in the middle of the night.”
The fire spit, and a log collapsed, sending a shower of sparks into the night. Bo stared at the embers, voice barely audible.
“He’s going to find me,” he said. “He’s not going to stop until he does.”
I shifted, pulled him closer, and let my hand settle at the back of his neck, thumb rubbing slow circles on the skin. “Not if I get to him first.”
