“What happened?” Jace asked.
“I need to ask you the same thing,” I said quietly.
“What do you mean?”
“Last summer after you got him out of the hospital, you were alone with him for nearly two days.”
Jace stiffened and his already dark eyes went black with anger. “Is that what you think of me, Mav?” he asked. “You think I’d take advantage of a traumatized seventeen-year-old kid?”
“I don’t want to believe it, but whatever attachment he’s formed with you apparently hasn’t eased even a little since you left nearly six months ago.”
“Fuck you, Mav,” Jace snapped and then he was reaching for the door handle. But I slammed my hand against the door to keep it closed.
“The cops found him standing on a bridge that is apparently some kind of fucking magnet for jumpers.”
Jace’s reaction was similar to what mine had been at the police station.
Utter disbelief.
“Now tell me what the fuck is going on between you two,” I demanded. “Because we haven’t been able to get more than a few words out of him at a time and today he’s suddenly demanding to talk to you and only you.”
“Nothing fucking happened, Mav!” Jace bit out. “Yeah, the kid’s got some kind of hero worship thing going on because I got him out of that hospital, but that’s it. I thought the sooner I left, the sooner his life would start to go back to normal again…even though I guess it never really was normal with what that fucker was doing to him.”
“There has to be more than that!” I said in frustration.
“There isn’t! Think about it, Mav. He watched his brother die at his father’s own hand after being victimized by the man for most of his life. His mother was gone; Eli was gone…he had no one! So yeah, he latched on to me! He would have done it with anyone, though.”
“So you don’t have feelings for him?”
Jace opened his mouth to answer, but then snapped it shut.
“Jesus, Jace,” I muttered.
“Nothing happened, Mav,” he bit out. “Yeah, I felt sorry for him and I wanted to help him, but that was it. I never touched him…not the way you’re thinking.”
“Whatdidyou do?”
Jace turned away from me and began pacing and I was reminded of Caleb’s behavior earlier in the day. “I held him,” Jace finally said. “But that’s it.” He stopped and looked at me. “You should have seen him, Mav. He couldn’t fucking sleep. He couldn’t stop shaking. He kept whispering how cold he felt. So yeah, I held him while he slept. I comforted him when he needed it. But that’s it.”
The normally cool and detached Jace’s voice was full of emotion so I knew that wasn’t ‘just it.’ But I did believe that Jace was telling the truth about not doing anything inappropriate with Caleb physically.
“I did what I was supposed to do and got him back here,” Jace murmured. “And I left as soon as I knew he was safe.”
I didn’t respond because it actually seemed like Jace was trying to convince himself rather than me that he’d done the right thing by Caleb.
“Have you talked to him since then?”
Jace shook his head. “He wanted my number, but I didn’t give it to him…I knew he was getting too attached to me.”
“We need to know if he was really considering hurting himself today, Jace,” I finally said. “Eli and I want to bring him here to live with us so I can keep an eye on him, but we need to know what we’re dealing with. He’s refusing any kind of therapy and he’s skipped so much school that he’ll probably have to be held back a year. And with his father’s trial coming up…”
Jace nodded. “I’ll talk to him.”
I nodded and opened the door and led Jace to Caleb’s room. Caleb was lying on the bed and Eli was sitting on the small armchair we’d put in the room to serve as a place for guests to put their luggage. Baby was lying on the bed next to Caleb.
“Caleb, Jace is here,” I said softly and I saw Caleb slowly turn his head to look over his shoulder at us. Tears flooded his eyes as he sat up and then he was climbing unsteadily to his feet. He really did look different from the young man we’d met the previous summer. His hair had gotten long and messy and he’d lost a lot of weight. Dark circles under his eyes overshadowed his gaunt face. God, how had we all missed how quickly the young man had spiraleddownward? Why had we been content to believe he’d get better on his own?
“Jace?” Caleb whispered and then a harsh sob tore free of his throat and he walked into Jace’s embrace.
