Don't Let the Forest In

by C.G. Drews

was the Australian accent, Dove had said, and added, Look, Andrew, we’re still novelties in America. Lean into your accent and you’ll have any girl by the end of high school. Andrew decided to speak as little as possible for the rest of forever.

Once upon a time, Andrew had cut out his heart and given it to this boy, and he was very sure Thomas had no idea that Andrew would do anything for him. Protect him. Lie for him. Kill for him.

But Dove could be tossed into anything and she’d bounce. Andrew was a glass figurine. Drop him and he shattered.

“I think someday you’ll hate me.” Thomas’s voice stretched with a loneliness Andrew had never heard before. “You’ll cut me open and find a garden of rot where my heart should be.”

“When I cut you open,” Andrew finally said, “all I’ll find is that we match.”

For a vicious moment, Andrew thought about slipping his fingers into Thomas’s cut. Taking hold of his rib and breaking it. Pulling the soft crumbling bone from his chest and sewing it into his own. They’d be forever together, rib against rib, fused in gore and bone and adoration.

The remains of a battlefield lay in his wake, broken swords and hollyhock crowns left to decay among piles of bones. But the sword plunged through his stomach was his fault. All Thomas had done was ask to love a boy lost in fairy tales, and the boy had ordered him punished.