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It hadn’t hurt, the day he had cut out his own heart.
Andrew decided to speak as little as possible for the rest of forever. Invisible was best. It was easier to speak less and hide his softest parts so he could fit between the shadows of the rich private school kids with their bored expressions and catlike claws.
Dozens of heads turned. Only one mattered.
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.
“I could draw you a cover,” Thomas said. “But I only draw monsters, so you probably couldn’t handle that.” He looked at Andrew as he said it, his mouth a serious line with a challenge tucked into one corner. “I can handle you,” Andrew said. He’d meant to say I can handle it.
His best talent had always been letting people down. Even in sleep, apparently.
“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.” Andrew let the silence sharpen between them, waited until Thomas’s breath caught in quiet anguish from being made to wait. “When I cut you open,” Andrew finally said, “all I’ll find is that we match.”
To write something nice, he’d need something nice to say. But his ribs were a cage for monsters and they cut their teeth on his bones.
He needed Thomas, but he’d always known Thomas didn’t need him in the same way.
Maybe Thomas had been right and Andrew was deeply messed up. It had just taken five years for Thomas to notice, and now that he had, he didn’t even want to sleep in the same room.
He decided, oh so quietly, to avoid them both in return. Except they didn’t notice his cold shoulder.
Andrew frowned, but didn’t answer. It felt like finding a paper cut in the corner of his month, a sting both sharp and surprising. Thomas had him. He would never have nothing.
Okay bud calm down
October arrived with cold teeth sharp enough to split bone.
His chest was a broken cage for his emotions, and they spilled out of him like paint.
Just once, Andrew wanted to step outside of his skin and be someone who could talk easily, fit next to other people and not want to take himself apart and analyze everything he’d done wrong.
He knew how to ruin Thomas the same way Thomas knew how to ruin him. They could be so beautiful to each other. They could be so cruel.
He was so tired of suffering because he moved through the world differently from everyone else.
