Chapter 2
“Harry.” Silence. A growing gulf between them. “Harry I can tell you’re awake.”
He’s not. He doesn’t want to be. He doesn’t want to be here at all. All he can see is her hair, floating in the water like seaweed. Her eyes. Blue, like the bloodied tiles.
A hand sneaks over his waist, pressing into his abdomen and pushing him into Tom’s manacled embrace. He flinched at the icy touch, skin burning under the bony fingers.
“Are we lying to each other now? Is that it?” The voice was growing frustrated now. Like a child, throwing a tantrum about the dog not fetching. Then, closer. So close.”Years of relationship and you still can’t communicate like a normal person?” Icy whispers filling his ear, his soul.
Harry shifted in the bed, turning to face Tom’s stone gaze. A cold hand caressed his cheek, knuckles scraping his skin like claws.
“I’m sorry Tom.” It was honest. Burningly honest.
The eyes softened. The jaw unclenched. It was the right thing to say.
“I know you are. You can’t help it.”
They were face to face now. Noses almost touching. There was something mortifying about Tom in this light. Sprawled against the white sheets like a greyscale renaissance painting. Something heavenly about his sharp cheekbones and soot-black eyes, consuming everything they turned to like a desolate black hole.
“Tell me what you’re thinking.” Came the order, thinly vailed as a question. Harry knew it for what it was, knew Tom wasn’t even trying. He didn’t have to.
“You know what I’m thinking.” He didn’t want to say it. It would make it real. Make her body as real as his own.
The smile Tom flashed was as honest as any Haary has ever seen. Mockery is a difficult thing to fake.
“I can’t tell you.”
Predictable. Unquestionable.
“Can you at least… I don’t know.” He really tried to stop his voice from cracking “Please, Tom.” Couldn’t give in just like that. He knew this was important, could feel the gravity hanging in the air like a poisonous gas.
The amusement in Tom’s face faded, giving way to the dangerous kind of annoyance Harry knew so well.
“Harry, I don’t want you worrying about this. You’ve been better recently, right? Don’t fuck that up.”
This is how it ended every time. This blow, way too low for him to pick himself back up.
But not this time. This was too important. Harry took a deep, shaky breath. He didn’t want to have this conversation right now.
“I won’t. I promise. He could feel his resolve evaporate into the choking air between them. “But Tom, this will drown me. I can tell. I can feel it.” He had to convince him. He had to know. This was too important. He took another breath.” I helped you, didn’t I? We’re in this together, you said it yourself. It’s only right that I know…”
Tom’s touch stripped him of words. Fingers tracing the thin, pinky lines on his arms. Then lips, softly brushing against the back of his palm. Tom was gripping his wrist now, holding it to his mouth, as if breathing life into him. Out of him. Harry couldn’t tell.
There was something more in his face now. Something that froze Harry to his core. Something raw and honest.
“I love you, you know that?” The question was like a Russian roulette playing with Harry’s soul. His very being.
“Yes” Only a whisper, hesitant.
Tom was looking straight at him now, Harry’s limp hand crushed in his grip like the greatest treasure he never wanted to let go.
“Then trust me with this. Trust that I will care for you. Have I ever done anything else?”
The trigger was pulled. That something was gone now. Tom was all back to normal. His familiar kind of treachery.
Harry shook his head. Eyes on Tom’s fingers, gripping his hand in prayer. With one last squeeze Tom turned around, his breathing slowly evening out.
But Harry laid there. Hand abandoned on the sheets between them. Tom’s grotesque spine towering over him in the moonlight like some monstrosity from children’s stories.
Her cold stare burning into his mind.