Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 84533 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 423(@200wpm)___ 338(@250wpm)___ 282(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84533 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 423(@200wpm)___ 338(@250wpm)___ 282(@300wpm)
I needed to bring him home, yet I didn’t. I couldn’t figure out why I wasn’t doing it. While he kept me on edge, there was also something soothing about having him here. About the way he smiled at his book when he read and the sounds he made when he ate.
We had dinner together too, and while I cooked, Cyrus settled into his corner of the couch, tucked in with his book, like he belonged there. “Have you read all the books on your shelves?”
“Not the top shelf. Those are for this winter.” Along with the internet, I’d learned more about the outside world, about people, through reading.
“Shit. I’m sorry I took one you haven’t read.”
I shook off his concern but didn’t reply. I just watched him. I liked watching him.
When Cyrus said he was tired, I nodded, secured the house, turned off the lights, and went with him to his room.
“You can’t stay awake all night again.” No, I couldn’t, but I’d catnapped some. “You also can’t stay on the floor again.”
“Go to sleep, little lamb,” I said, conversation done.
With a sigh, he pulled a pillow and a blanket from the bed and brought them to me. When I didn’t take them right away, Cyrus set them beside me, walked back to the bed, stripped out of his clothes, and climbed in. “Get the light, would you?”
What I really wanted was to worship his body again, sink inside his ass and never leave it. Instead, I shut off the light and sat on the floor against the wall. I pulled the blanket over me, and when he started snoring softly, I lay down with my head on the pillow that smelled like him.
*
We settled into a routine over the next couple of days. Neither of us mentioned Cyrus leaving. I couldn’t figure out why he didn’t want to, what was keeping him here with me. I didn’t know what his plans were about his job either. He’d asked if I had a cell-phone charger, so I lent him mine. I wondered if he would use it to try and call someone to pick him up, but he didn’t.
He ate the meals I cooked, and helped me can vegetables, and asked questions about the gardens and living on a mountain. Sometimes I answered and sometimes I didn’t, and Cyrus never pushed. The weather was getting colder. Snow would arrive soon, so I knew I had to take him home.
The thought of him leaving made discomfort crawl down my spine. Made it feel like there was a weight in my gut. What if the man who hit him came back? What if he let someone other than me inside him?
“You growled. Why did you just growl?” Cyrus ate a bite of pasta.
I shook my head, unable to reply. I hadn’t even known I’d growled.
“I think if you ever moved off the mountain, you should be a chef. Everything you make is so good,” he continued, happy, comfortable in a way I’d never seen him. Not that I’d seen much of him at all.
“I’m taking you home tomorrow,” I said, without looking at him. In my periphery, I saw his fork stop halfway to his mouth. Guilt spread through me like a virus.
“Oh,” he replied softly.
“Not…you. Not because of you,” I clarified because I didn’t want him to think it was his fault. He hadn’t done anything wrong. This was my issue. I had no idea how to share my space with him.
Cyrus didn’t respond. He did continue to eat, though, which I appreciated.
A minute went by, then another and another. Five…maybe more. For the last ten years I’d loved nothing more than the silence, but in that moment, it was deafening.
“You don’t have things,” I told him.
“What do you mean I don’t have things?”
“You only have ninety days of your medication.” I’d looked at the bottles, seen what he had, searched them online so I could learn as much as possible about them.
“Don’t do that. Don’t use my mental illness as a reason I can’t stay here. That’s not fair. Plus, I have more pills at home. I haven’t always been the best with taking them, so I have extra.” He glanced down, clearly embarrassed. “I’m better about it now.”
“What about your job?”
“Fuck my job.”
“Bills? Car? Life?”
“Fuck all that too!” he shouted. “I don’t have anything that matters to me. Nothing besides one small box of my mom’s things in my closet. I don’t care if I lose everything else. I’d start over like I’ve done a hundred other times. Don’t you get it, Crow? I. Am. Nothing.”
My nostrils flared. Hearing him speak about himself that way, knowing that he believed it… I might not know what this was between us, but he wasn’t nothing to me. The words jumbled around in my head again, making it hard to get them out. This tended to happen when my emotions got too high.