Don't Let the Forest In

by C.G. Drews

He needed Thomas to pin him to the floor, fingers tight around his wrists, hips against hips, their mouths inches apart, so Thomas could breathe two words into Andrew’s lungs— Calm down.

Andrew didn’t need to turn. He could feel who it was by the shape of his breath, how he leaned forward in a way that spoke of deep familiarity, as if any part of Andrew he touched would instantly respond to him.

“I should never have called you a coward.” Thomas’s voice sounded wrecked. “Talk to me. Leave the plate and come outside.”

If he wanted Thomas gone, he could deal with it himself. 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.

“Shut up. Can you even hear yourself? You screw up and you want to be punished. You want to be absolved in violence. Do you realize how incredibly fucked up that is?”

I lost my mind for a second and freaked out that you could never love someone this wicked.”

They whirled around at the same time, the very moment a monster pulled out of the wallpaper.

Then it slammed Andrew’s head down on the mahogany table. Once—stars, dazzling and bitter— Twice—ears ringing, piercing whine— Three times—blood in his mouth, the world turned doughy and unsteady, the back of his head wet, wet, wet—

He should … he needed to … He didn’t know. He felt alive, powerful, effervescent. He started to shake.

“Damn it, Andrew, stop smiling. What did you do?” “I killed it myself.” Andrew dug fingers into Thomas’s shirt. “I’m s-s-strong enough now. I’m so-so-so much—so much more than I used to be.”

“I want you. Please, I-I-I want you more than anything. Don’t let me go.”

If he put fingers in his mouth, he could feel it—moss growing at the back of his throat.

All he could think was, She knows. That he sacrificed Clemens. That he killed the dream ravager. That he hit a boy instead of confessed he loved him.

He knew how those stories looked. Violent. Macabre. Wicked. Twisted.

Andrew and Thomas would need to be in the forest early to fight them back and spill enough blood to satisfy the monsters’ appetites. It didn’t matter whose blood, theirs or the monsters’. Someone just had to suffer.

but he was desperate enough to try kicking the door in if he had to. Add property damage to his list of sins. It was too late for remorse.

Thomas had drawn in pastels, something he rarely did, the pencil so light on the page that it looked like it was fading away. It was almost finished. The three of them. Thomas, Andrew, Dove.

It hurt to look at them like this, at their grief and rage and joy. But they were all together, weren’t they? In this papered reality, nothing had driven them apart.

Andrew was not himself as he took hold of the paper and tore it down the middle. He was something else entirely as he ripped Dove’s face in half. Then Thomas’s. Then his.

A boy hung from the trees, vines noosed around his neck and thrust down his throat. Leaves curled out of his ears, still growing, his clothes torn where rose thorns had caught against flesh, all the better to find blood on which to feed. touch me again and I’ll kill you— aren’t you pleased? this is exactly what you asked for

He was a wretched thing, a rotten thing, a skeleton with his insides already devoured by the forest. It was too late to save him.

Andrew thought he heard Lana say, “… calling for Dove. You need to make sure he knows.” Thomas stared at her. “Knows? The hell? He freaking knows, Lana.”

“For the last time,” Thomas yelled. “I wasn’t in the forest with her! I wasn’t there! I wasn’t there.”

“If you want Bryce, he’s in the art room. The forest ate his eyes. I-I-I need to talk to Dove. I’ll go get her.”

“Andrew…” He stopped, his face naked and wretched and aching.

There wasn’t enough of Andrew to hold on to, so it was easy for him to slip away into the dark.

“Dove.” His voice rose against the velvet dark. “I need you. DOVE.”

Dove’s fingers brushed his hand, and his scars seemed to light up like they’d been brushed with acid. “No.” She’d never sounded so gentle. “I think you’re hallucinating Thomas.”

“When school went back this year,” Dove said slowly, “Thomas was arrested for murdering his parents.”

“He didn’t come back to Wickwood after that. It’s horrible. It’s … hard to accept. So I guess you didn’t accept it. In your head, he’s still here.” She wiped her eyes quickly. “I didn’t think you were struggling this much, or I would have told Dad about it.”

“Lana doesn’t talk to you. She’s never been your friend.”

“What about Chloe? She rooms with you and Lana. She’s … my friend.”

“You’re messing with me and—and stop it! Just stop.” He jerked back when she reached for him. “Don’t you dare touch me.”

“I want you to know, whatever happens, I love you and I’m going to get you help.”

He could feel the way this was the end, how he soon would not be able to hold it in.

His lips parted, and he was screaming. One word, the only one that mattered. “THOMAS.” “THOMAS.” “THOMAS THOMAS THOMAS—”

They collided like trees felled in a storm, arms flung around each other and heads cracking together from the force of their entwining.

He flung his arms around Thomas’s neck and crushed him breathlessly close, breathing him in, all forests and charcoal pencils, his body hard and lean and impossible to break.

“What?” Thomas said. “Of course I’m real. I figured you ran down here, and I came as fast as I could but—” “Bryce is—” “It’s not your fault.” Thomas

“Is this all in my head?” Andrew went on, barely coherent. “Did I make this all up? The m-monsters, the-the stories, the—” “I’m real, Andrew. Do you see the blood on my shirt? How can—” “Kiss me, then.” It burst out of him, frantic and feral. “Kiss me.”

Then he whispered, “I am real. You are real.” “Make me believe you,” Andrew said.

They were a catastrophe, exploding.

“She was right behind me.” Andrew twisted, looking at the empty track. “I just don’t understand why she lied. I’m so confused, I’m always—I’m so confused.”

“That … that thing you were talking to. It wasn’t her.” “She’s my sister. I know her—”

His eyes looked like a thousand shattered mirrors as he pressed his thumb to Andrew’s mouth. All he could taste was blackberry briars and dirt and forest rot. “That thing was not Dove because Dove is dead.”

Thomas stared down at him with eyes bright as the forest after rain. He was so real right then, so alive. The world smelled violently of roses.

“You think my nose is perfect?” “Well, it’s straight,” Andrew said. Thomas’s mouth quirked a little. “At least one part of me is.”

He could only handle life if he looked at it carefully from the corner of his eye. It was easier this way.

He was a hurricane and she the whole sky, and even now they were having a vehement conversation with their eyes as Andrew walked away. Neither went after him.