But there he was, kneeling beside a hospital bed, holding my hand, staring at my blood, afraid.
When he finally looked up, his eyes weren't his. I don't know how else to describe it. They were his color, his shape, his lashes, but what lived inside them was something I had never seen before. Happiness and pain. Relief and anger. Love and disbelief. More pain. More happiness. All of it churning at once, like he was drowning in a dozen feelings he didn't have permission to feel in this moment, in front of me.
Tears welled in his eyes. Dagon. My Dagon. The same Dagon who once told me crying was a luxury for people who hadn't had to grow up too fast. He was about to cry.
My heart broke open in a way I didn't know it could. I squeezed his hand as hard as I could manage – which was barely a flicker, the drugs and the broken bones making my body feel like wet sand – and tried to give him something. Anything. I'm here. I'm okay. Don't be afraid.
"I'm okay, Dagon," I croaked through my parched lips.
He bent over my hand. Slowly. Carefully. Like the movement cost him something. His forehead came to rest against my knuckles, and I felt the warmth of his breath on my skin, the heat of his face, the dampness of his tears soaking into the cotton of the bandage at my wrist. And then barely, I felt the press of his lips against my hand. I even thought I imagined it. He whispered something then. I couldn't hear what it was. Not the words. But I felt the shape of them against my hand – short, repeated, a chant or a prayer or an apology or something else that I had a feeling I'd never know.
I would never know.
And that whisper would haunt me for years.
I wanted to stay awake. I tried speaking, but the drugs were too strong, and I was dragged back into slumber.
The next day was a haze of visits and my brothers hovering over me. They all left at some point, all except Dagon. He was glued to my side, helping with anything I needed.
I was worried about him. He didn't seem like he was getting any sleep, and he was refusing to speak about the competition. Even the others refused to say a word about how it went.
One day, I looked up and caught him staring at me. The same swirl of emotions from a few days ago danced in his eyes. Our staring was broken when our father entered the room and started asking me questions about how I was feeling. Dagon stayed by my side for the next several days and cared for me. Everything was normal until one day, it wasn’t.
One day, he put on a mask. And I knew a mask when I saw one. After all, I’d worn mine for a long, long time.
“I’ll be right back,” he said, giving my hand a squeeze. “Everything will be alright.”
With that, he left and never came back the same.
Why did everything change? The more I thought about it, the less sense it made. There had to be a reason. There fucking had to be.
After I returned from the hospital, Dagon distanced himself from me. Our late-night talks stopped. I spent many nights alone, waiting for him till I realized he wasn’t coming. Several nights I went to his bedroom door and knocked, waiting for him to open the door, to let me in, or to come to me. He never did. I tried speaking with him, but he made excuses,"I'm busy. I need to study. I'm going out."Eventually, a few months later, when we graduated, he moved into an apartment, and I saw him once in a blue moon.
The devastation of losing him while he was still there had been a constant companion through the years.
Can we put it all behind us? Can we have what we once had? Can I see the real Dagon ever again, or am I doomed to stay on the other side of the iceberg he pretends to be?
I didn’t have time to spiral further since the room service arrived. Dagon came out of the shower as I set the food on thelittle table. His hair was damp and messy. Droplets clung to his skin and soaked into an old, oversized shirt with a tear along one sleeve. His sweatpants were baggy and loose.
Why the hell did he look even hotter like that?
I tried my best to keep my eyes from devouring him.
“Why didn’t you start?” he asked.
It took me several seconds to register what he meant. Good thing he gestured toward the food.
“Oh, it just got here, and I was waiting for you.”
Dagon nodded and sat beside me. We ate in silence. Thank god the TV was on. If not, the awkwardness would’ve rivaled the time Bren slipped on a banana peel in front of his crush and fell into a puddle of dog poo. Yes, that actually happened. And yes, I still hear him recount it and claim a demon orchestrated it.
I stole a few glances at Dagon between bites. I couldn’t help but notice how different he was. Genuinely different. At home, he never wore comfortable clothes and always seemed tense. Why did he have to look like sin in sweatpants?
Add in the comfortable clothes and casual energy, and the package‘drool over Dagon’was complete with a bow.
“The hotel’s nice,” Dagon said after dinner. “Good choice.”
“Thanks. We should get some sleep. Tomorrow will be a long day.”
