Andrew had this desperate, shaky urge to flatten his hands over Thomas’s mouth and press until he lost his breath and forgot he wanted to speak.
Thomas still didn’t turn. “I know you don’t like to talk about stuff, likereallytalk, but—”
“We talk all the time, all day.” Andrew snapped his notebook shut, heart galloping. “I was thinking, are you sure we haven’t missed some of your sketchbooks? Any lost under your bed? In the art room?”
For a long moment, Thomas said nothing. He picked at moss between the bricked cracks in the stairs. “I gave one to Dove. Ages ago. She probably got rid of it.”
“I’ll find out,” Andrew said. “Maybe Lana will look for us.”
“I don’t think it’s the problem,” Thomas said, voice low. “We’re erasing everything I ever created and it hasn’thelped.Maybe we should talk about that, too. We don’t talk about why the monsters won’t stop. Why they even started. We don’t talk about Dove. We don’t talk about what will happen after we graduate.” His words scraped against each other, as if he struggled to even pull them out of his throat. “We sleep in the same bed nearly every night now and we don’t freaking talk about that, either.”
Andrew shoved to his feet. His body felt like an unwieldy colt, limbs detached, and he nearly fell as he stepped over Thomas and hit the damp path. It would start raining again soon. Sodden air pressed against his cheeks, but it did nothing to cool him. He was burning up; he was made of fever.
Thomas said, “It’s ruining me.”
And Andrew couldn’t look at him.
“You could cut me open and devour everything that I am,” Thomas said, ragged and thin. “I would let you. I’daskyou to. But I have no idea what it means to you. What… what I mean to you.”
“Of course I like you.” It came out rougher than Andrew meant.
“But do you want me?” Thomas stood then, too, crumbs on his pants and his shirt half untucked. “Howdo you want me?”
Andrew closed his eyes. “Stop.”
“Because I watch you, okay? I have for years.” Thomas ran a hand over his face, but he was already blushing his trademark red. “You don’t look at boys. I mean, we’ve been in locker rooms, in our bedroom, and you’ve seen me naked. It’s like you look away fast because you don’t want to see. Not… not that you’re embarrassed to be caught.”
Andrew couldn’t do this. A muscle in his jaw clenched. “You like girls. What is this even—”
“Not just girls.” Thomas’s ears had gone beet red. “But you know that.”
“I don’t know anything.”
“Damn it, Andrew.” His voice had gone uneven. “Can’t you tell that I’m in… that I like you? Because I-I like you a lot, okay?”
Andrew had heard the slip, the save.I’m in love with you.His blood roared so loud he couldn’t think and all he could focus on was the tight nub of pain in his ear. Burrowing, searching,hungry. Just like him. He starved—for this confession, for the raw, helpless look on Thomas’s face. Hadn’t Andrew wanted this all along?
It shouldn’t be so hard to whisper,I’m in love with you, too, but—
But.
That word was too huge.
But what about Dove? But what if she loved him first? But what if Thomas wanted more than Andrew could give?But—
The world felt ready to spin away, and he couldn’t swallow properly. In his chest, his heart beat itself bloody against his ribs. He was losing control.
“Everything inside me is in ruins,” Thomas said. “For you.”
A fine misty rain started, and it tasted of the forest. Andrew stared at his knuckles gone white against the spine of his notebook. He could tear out a dozen stories and shove them in Thomas’s face. Each said, in bloody and beautiful ways,I love you I love you I love you.
Instead, his voice felt like it came from someone else, distant and mechanical.
“I’m asexual,” Andrew said.
It sat between them, echoing. Mist coated Thomas’s eyelashes as he blinked. His face was still full of aching questions and want—but a furrow dug between his brows.
The pause went too long.
