Total pages in book: 124
Estimated words: 118125 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 591(@200wpm)___ 473(@250wpm)___ 394(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 118125 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 591(@200wpm)___ 473(@250wpm)___ 394(@300wpm)
“So what do you think you have earned?” Damon asked carefully.
Rian started, glancing at him wide-eyed, before looking away once more. He tucked his hair back again, and this time delicate fingertips left diamond-spangled droplets clinging to the ripples of his black hair; rosettes bloomed against pale cheeks.
“This,” he answered, just as quietly, his gaze shifting sidelong to drift over the room—but it wasn’t hard to tell he was looking at the room as part of the school, especially when he said, “This place, here.” Then he smiled—that bitter crease that seemed so much more honest than his artificial ones, and yet still a sad echo of that singular bright, genuine smile he’d flashed as he’d taken in Damon’s apartment. “Well...maybe...maybe not wholly earned. You know. The whole whisper network around this place.”
“Have to know someone who knows someone. Yeah.” Damon dumped the hunk of beef out onto the cutting board and reached across the sink to fish out a second knife; for a moment his body brushed against the faint, wispy warmth of Rian’s, his body heat as thin and ephemeral as smoke, before Damon jerked back, carefully angling the blade away from Rian as he drew it close. Swallowing, he focused on his hands. “We all got hired that way. That’s not the same as having things handed to you.”
“You too...?”
“Yeah. That Hemlock guy.”
“Iseya,” Rian corrected.
“Right. Iseya. The counselor? Forgot he married the psych teacher. But I’m talking about the other Hemlock guy. His father.” Damon kept his gaze down, rather than letting the curiosity in Rian’s voice draw him to meet hazel eyes; instead he watched his fingers as he started slicing the beef into thin, precise strips of white-veined red. “His dad was some kind of bigshot here, before he died when Hemlock was just a kid. Did a lot of local work. My parents knew him. Involved with a lot of charity stuff together. When I was looking for a job after burning out on football in college and giving up on the Navy...” He shrugged. “A few people here remembered that. Easier to work here when you’re hometown, anyway.”
“Are you from Omen...?”
“Mostly,” Damon said tightly. “As much as I can remember. Though my parents moved from Omen up to Vermont to retire.”
In his peripheral vision, he caught white hands moving delicately, replacing the yellow pepper with a red one, washing it just as meticulously. “I don’t understand...as much as you can remember?”
“I mean I don’t know where I’m from,” Damon threw out, more harshly than he intended. “I’m adopted.”
Rian’s breath sucked in. “...oh.” Then, “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t,” Damon snarled, snapping the knife down harder through the next slice of beef and then just leaving it, hand tight on the handle. “My parents loved me like I was their blood. I don’t need pity.”
“No, I—!” Rian made a flustered sound. “That’s...that’s not what I meant, I just... I was sorry I asked so rudely, I...”
He sounded so distressed that Damon couldn’t help looking up at him.
And found Rian standing there clutching the red bell pepper to his chest like he was clutching at his own beating heart, and looking at Damon with his eyes wide with chagrin, his pale little mouth trembling.
Damon just...groaned, setting the knife down and using his elbow to nudge Rian aside so he could thrust his hands under the cold spray, rinsing the thin sheen of runny liquid red from his skin.
“It’s fine,” he said. “I’m just...a little touchy about it. My parents were white, and...you know, I just...”
“Felt disconnected,” Rian filled in softly, and Damon stilled, his heart turning over sharply.
It was strange to hear it said out loud by someone else.
So easily, so naturally.
As if it was entirely normal to feel that way.
When every time that frustrating feeling came bubbling up inside him, Damon just...wondered if he was being ungrateful.
“Yeah,” he exhaled, curling his fingers under the spray. “Life with Mom and Dad wasn’t bad. But I don’t know who my birth parents are. I don’t know how I lost them. If they died, if they gave me up, if I was taken away from them...and you know, records and confidentiality and shit...my parents don’t know, either. I was too young to even remember where I came from. For all I know I was born here in Omen...or maybe I was born on Mashpee Wampanoag land with...with people who looked like me. Who have all these traditions I don’t know a damned thing about even though they’re mine by birthright.”
Goddammit. Why was he telling Rian this?
Why was he spilling out something this personal, this painful, to someone he’d only shared more than two words with for the first time yesterday?
There was just...something about Rian.
Something that ripped all these raw things out of Damon that he kept suppressed in the day to day. His questions about who he was, about what he wanted...