The rest I can do.
A smile curves my lips as I imagine it.
A future with both of them.
But I know now Faust has a contract on the table, and Sylvan doesn’t know what he wants to do. My heart is set on the Jungian program in Toronto, but it’s also latched onto both of these boys. Then there’s the question of whether or not I want to work within the constraints of the psychology system or carve my own path.
I glance at Sylvan’s fingers running along my palm, and the soft glow catches on the small, pearly white scar over the veins of his hand.
I curl my own fingers and loop onto his index one, gently stopping his caress. When I lift my heavy gaze to his icy eyes, his head against the pillow, white-blond hair sticking up at allangles, a soft smile I would never expect to see on his face curves his pretty mouth.
Faust breathes evenly beneath me, the arm threaded under my spine wrapped around my hip, low. He holds tight suddenly, as if he senses I’m going to say something that might shatter our cocoon.
But I don’t want to do that.
I just want toknow.
“What happened?” I ask quietly, squeezing Sylvan’s finger. “To your hand?”
His eyes flash, a memory or thought racing through his brain. It’s like I can see it in real time, and I watch his throat roll as he swallows.
He glances down, at our entwined hands, long, light lashes fanning over his lids. His lips are no longer curved, and Faust holds tighter to my hip.
Does he know? Or is Sylvan Connor a mystery to everyone?
Whatever the case, I want to unravel him.
He’s mine now, isn’t he?
At first, I assumed a hockey injury. I didn’t know what; the sport is still elusive to me in many ways although I’m learning every day. But now, based on his reaction, I have doubts.
I think of my talk with Faust about Sylvan’s family life. How his family never comes to a game. It's unusual, even among players who aren’t very close with their parents. Generally, there’s still some level of pride.
It would be easy to assume his parents were dead, but Faust said he knew that, at least, wasn’t the case.
Softly, Sylvan starts to speak. So quiet, it seems as if both Faust and I are holding our breath.
“I had to attend a sort of confession, growing up.” He’s still staring at where my fingers are looped around his one, and he pauses.
“Were you Catholic?” Faust asks, voice low.
“No.” Sylvan breathes a laugh through his nose, but it lacks humor. “This was very different, from my understanding. It was a small community, we all lived on the same land, owned by the preacher.”
My heart starts to squeeze in my chest, and I’m not even sure why. Maybe the way he speaks, like he’s reciting his childhood from memory. Like he can’t bear to think about it any other way.
“We were physically…” He trails off, then clears his throat. It’s the most nervous I’ve ever seen Sylvan Connor. “Punished, depending on our sins. Nothing that usually left a mark.” He glances at the back of his hand, where the scar is. It’s not overtly long, but it must have been deep, the way it tunnels into his skin. “Preacher Tim wanted to try something new that day.” A wry smile fights its way onto his face. “For opening my eyes during Sunday service’s prayer. The one where we all got on our knees on the hard, wooden floors, and Tim droned on and on, sometimes for an hour, talking to God on our behalf, as he said. My legs went numb sometimes; I knelt so long.”
Faust isn’t breathing under me. I’m not sure I am either.
“Seeing Man’s Realm, as he called it, when us kids peeked while he prayed, was a punishable offense. So he took a sharpened pair of scissors and carvedsininto my skin, over and over, until it was so flayed, you couldn’t make out the word, just the blood dripping down my arm.” He looks up then, and the danger I usually sense in him is back. The kind that made me believe he killed Jackson. “That’s where I got it from, baby.”
My throat is tight.
Faust doesn’t speak.
But I can’t stay away.
I throw myself at him, wrapping my arms around his broad shoulders, our naked bodies coming together as I bury my head in the crook of his neck.
