Total pages in book: 83
Estimated words: 79892 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 399(@200wpm)___ 320(@250wpm)___ 266(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79892 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 399(@200wpm)___ 320(@250wpm)___ 266(@300wpm)
He perceived a great deal, as well.
And had a way of looking at people as if he understood far too much about the aches inside them; the darkness and the pain, all the raw places that eventually hardened into sharp-edged armor keen enough to cut anyone who got too close.
Fox had grown accustomed to making himself unseen, in his own way.
And it was discomfiting to be looked at by someone who seemed to want to know every last agony that still haunted him, in those secret places where he could not let go.
He turned his face away, folding his arms over his chest, waiting for the unspoken thing that seemed to hover on Summer’s lips. Likely some platitude, some useless bit of comfort that had lost meaning years ago when one of the first things Fox had learned was...
Words did not change anything.
Not for him.
The words of reassurance, of useless sympathy, only gave comfort to those who had lost nothing.
They were empty, to those who had lost...had lost...
Everything.
So he wasn’t expecting when that low, quiet voice said, “You aren’t the one who drowned, you know. I’m not sure you know that.”
It struck with the precision of a sword-thrust, and the cruelty of a death blow—a sensation as though his heart had split in two, striking rough and deep as Fox whipped his head back to stare at Summer, at that seemingly innocent face that could utter such terrible and hateful barbs, poison disguised as sugar in soft words.
“Excuse you?” he threw back, and hated how for a moment his voice quivered—then halted, his throat closing sharply, unexpectedly, with a rush so hard and so wretched he thought he would scream. “You have no right—”
“You’re right,” Summer said. “I don’t. I don’t have any right because I have no idea how you feel, and I have no idea what it’s like to lose someone the way you did.” He stood, unfolding his body with feline grace, steps silent on the concrete rimming the pool as he rounded the edge to draw closer to Fox. “I just know this hurts. It hurts seeing you living like you’re already dead, when you’re not.” His mouth actually trembled, before firming as he stopped in front of Fox, looking up at him with something dark and determined sparking in nightshade eyes, in the set of his jaw. “I know she left you behind and it’s terrifying, Fox. I know you feel like...like you’re completely alone. But you’re not. So you don’t have to hold on to the loneliness, the fear...like if you let go of them, you’ll have nothing left.”
“I won’t!” Fox flared, and he didn’t know why it hurt to breathe but it was abysmal, this horrid pain inside his chest, this dull heavy thing like a pounding fist smashing against the tender meat of him with every cursed word. He glared at Summer, fingers clenching, digging hard into the fabric of his sleeves, the flesh of his elbows. “I wasn’t even there, Summer. I wasn’t there for her. She died alone, crushed under that water in the darkness, and I wasn’t even there so she wouldn’t have to be the only one.”
“But you can’t change that by giving up on living at all.”
For all Fox’s harshness, Summer was gentle, soft—and he rested one warm hand against Fox’s chest, fingers splayed, the ridges of knuckles and tendons standing out against tanned skin, his warmth pressing...pressing...
Right over the raw, aching beat of Fox’s heart.
“What’s in the water that scares you, Fox?” Summer whispered. “Because it’s not her. You know she’s not there. You know, even if you don’t want to admit it.”
Fox stared at him, a horrid, hollow feeling building behind his eyes, spreading throughout him until he felt like this thin shell filling up with so much pain.
As if he really was her.
Trapped in a sinking vessel, the air crushing out of him, beating against the walls of his own heart as the anguish rushed in to drown him.
As he forced himself to answer a question that he refused to even acknowledge himself, even if it had been there inside him for two decades, crouched and waiting and cold and dark and so very, very terrible.
“I... I’m afraid...” Every word a struggle, every sound a raw wound cutting his tongue, reaching down into his throat to pull it tighter and tighter like closing purse-strings into a choking clutch, and the only reason he could speak at all was because those yearning, sweet blue eyes begged him to, held him fast, kept him from collapsing into silence. “...I’m afraid I’ll be tempted to join her. To just...let myself sink, and not come back up ever again.”
“Fox,” Summer whispered, and slipped his other hand into Fox’s hair, steady fingers weaving in deep, strong and comforting and warm and so very sure, drawing him in until their brows touched and he could taste Summer’s breaths on his lips. “But you don’t really want that, do you?”