by Lina Langley
There was something mesmerizing about the way he stared, even if what he was staring at was nothing.
“We’re all bad at cooking,” I finally said to him. “Cooking duties rotate.”
David stared at me for a second before he seemed to realize I was talking to him.
“Making salad is easier,” I said when he set his gaze on my face. For some reason, though I couldn’t figure out why, my cheeks were burning. “Which is why vegetarians get a better deal.”
“Oh,” David said after a little while, then cocked his head slightly. “Well, I can’t cook either. At all.”
“One of us,” Alix said as he clapped his hand over David’s shoulder. We continued talking about other things, mostly our schedules, as I kept an eye on David. Halfway through his meal, he was so pale that he looked like he might faint.
I furrowed my brow as I stared at him. He put his cutlery down so fast it banged against the plate. The sound was enough to startle me, but I didn’t seem to affect David in the slightest.
I watched as David moved his seat away from the table, scraping the floor under him and calling the attention of one of the guards. The guard was saying something as David ran toward the bathroom. I watched as he jiggled the knob, trying to get the door to open.
When it was clear that the door wasn’t going to budge, he knocked loudly on it. It was the loudest noise I had ever heard him make, and as he continued to knock, I wondered if he was going to break through the wood. For being as small as he was, he was remarkably strong.
It couldn’t have taken more than a few seconds, but it was enough time for it to be clear to everyone watching him that the door wasn’t going to open in time.
He turned around and began running toward the glass backdoors. I opened my mouth to tell him that the doors to the back garden were always looked, but there was no way to say a thing. He was already at the door, trying to slide it open with his fingertips, but it wasn’t working.
The door shook under him, but there was no way it was going to open. “Alix, get a bucket,” I said to him. “Pete, tell the guard to call the nurse, okay?”
I didn’t even check whether they were paying attention to me. I stood up and strolled over to where David was, still trying to pry the door open. There were beads of sweat covering his face and his face had turned a dark shade of green.
I didn’t want to touch him. I didn’t think he wanted to be touched, not when it was clear that he felt like shit. “The door doesn’t—”
He interrupted me by doubling over and heaving on the carpeted floor.
He barely looked up at me, his eyes glassy, as he began to vomit on the floor. It would have been impressive if it hadn’t looked so gross. It looked like something out of a horror movie.
I didn’t want to touch him. He was practically convulsing and it didn’t look like it was going to stop any time soon. Despite everything in me screaming not to do it, I leaned down and pushed his hair away from his face.
His skin was clammy and hot under my touch. I felt like I was going to be sick from touching him myself. Watching someone throw up was never pleasant, but there was something so visceral about this, and the fact that all the students had stopped to stare didn’t seem to make it any better.
There was no sound except for David’s retching. I could only look at his face for a second, and when I did, I saw tears in his eyes. It felt like the world had slowed down and we were all watching this in slow motion, like it was going to take forever for him to actually stop.
He did. It wasn’t sudden, he sort of eased into it, but it was rough to see him coughing up more as he tried to stand up. He was clearly dizzy, so without thinking, I put an arm around his waist to keep him upright. “David,” I said. “Are you okay?”
He looked at me, his eyes glassy, and then he nodded ever-so-slightly before he fainted into a heap in my arms.
CHAPTER THREE
I saw Alix dashing out of the cupboard under the stairs with the bucket, but by the point our gazes met, it was too late. David had already fainted and I was struggling to get him in a comfortable position to carry him to the infirmary.
He might have been light, but it was almost impossible to carry someone who didn’t appear to be able to even hold himself up. Alix dropped the bucket next to him and ran toward me.
“Grab his arm,” I said. “Put it around your shoulders. We’re going to have to carry him along.”
Alix nodded and did as he was told. We were both searching for a guard, because we could have done with some muscle then, but of course there wasn’t one in sight.
When we really needed one, they seemed to scatter into the wind and turn into nothingness. Alix clearly thought the same thing, because I heard him muttering under his breath.
As we left the dining room, I heard the rest of the boys begin to argue about who was going to clean that up. We dragged him toward the hallway, toward the infirmary, which was the room closest to the stairs.
The nurse and the guard were standing at the door, talking to each other. The nurse was about as muscular as the guard himself.
When he noticed us dragging David along, he took a step toward us. “He fainted?”
“Yeah,” I replied.
“For how long?”
“I don’t know,” I said. Nurse Kyle had grabbed David and was carrying him over his shoulder, as if he weighed absolutely nothing.
“Were you there when he fainted?”
“I was,” I replied. “Alix was getting a bucket.”
Kyle didn’t even nod. He just continued walking toward the infirmary. “Come with me, Quinn,” he said. “Steve, take Alix back to the dining room.”
I looked at Alix, who was pale and looked like he was going to throw up himself. Our gazes met for a second and I could see how panicked he was. I felt a little bad about it and I wanted to stay and make him feel better, but the most important thing I had to do right then was make sure David was okay.
The door to the infirmary was left open for me, so I went in and closed it softly behind me.
Kyle had deposited David on the cot and was busy taking his pulse. He stared at me as I leaned against the door. “Get me some salt, Quinn,” he said. “There’s some behind you, next to my lunch. Then go in the cupboard below that and get some wet wipes.”
“Got it,” I said, turning around and getting the things he had instructed me to get. I brought them to him and watched as he got David’s mouth open. David was propped up, sitting up, his back on the wall.
He sprinkled a packet of salt into David’s mouth. “What are you doing?”
“His blood pressure plummeted, which made him faint,” he said. “The salt should help.”
I held my breath as David’s eyes slowly fluttered open. He seemed to be getting some color back in his face. His gaze darted between me and Kyle.
I could practically hear him peeling his tongue away from the roof of his mouth. “What happened?” he asked, his voice husky.
“You fainted,” Kyle replied. “Which doesn’t surprise me, because it seems like you threw up every single nutrient you’ve had for the last couple of days.”
He blinked as the realization of what the nurse had just said seemed to sink in. His gaze fell on my face. “You saw that?”
“Yeah, David,” I said, trying to make my voice soft. I wanted to sound reassuring. “We all saw that.”
David swallowed. I saw his Adam’s apple move up and down in his throat. His eyes still looked glassy, but at least he didn’t look like he was going to faint anymore.
“You need to rest,” he said. “Get plenty of liquids.”
“I can stay with him,” I heard myself say.
Kyle looked at me for a second before he nodded. “Sure,” he said. “I’ll let your caseworker know. Krista, right?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I’m supposed to be gardening.”
Kyle smiled at me. “Every boy’s favorite week,” he said, then his expression darkened. “I am on
ly allowing this because I really would like someone to be around David right now. Maybe this is a virus and it’ll pass by itself, but if there’s anything else wrong, I need to know. Do you understand, Quinn? You have to tell me.”
“I understand,” I said. “I’ll tell you.”
“Take him to your room,” he said. “And here, have some baby wipes. Make sure to keep the fan running. You really don’t want him to overheat.”
“Got it,” I replied. “Do you need my help?”
David got off the cot and shook his head. He wouldn’t meet my gaze as Kyle rattled off instructions. He wouldn’t do it even as we began to walk toward our dorm, sort of slowly, mostly because I was worried he was going to faint again.
“You know,” he said. “I’m not going to just collapse.”
I looked at him. He smiled and shook his head. “No, I’m serious,” he said. “I mean, I never have before.”
I nodded as we started to climb the stairs. There was barely enough space for both of us in the staircase, but we seemed to be making it work. I let him go in front on me when we got the landing, mostly because I wanted to watch how he walked.
At first, when he walked in front of me, the only thing I wanted to check was whether his walk was steady. But he walked slowly and I couldn’t help but slide my gaze down his body.
He was wearing tight skinny jeans that showed off a gorgeous ass that I had never noticed before. I looked away from him when he stopped and looked at me over his shoulder, clearly noticing that I had stopped walking.
“Are you okay, Quinn?”
I smiled a little at that. He shouldn’t have been the one asking me if I was okay. “Yeah,” I said. “I mean, better than you.”
“Not saying much,” David replied, biting his lower lip. He waited for me, not moving at all, so I rushed over to where he was and walked with him. He sighed and stuck his hands in his pockets, which seemed like an impossible task because those jeans were tight.
“Are you okay, though, really?”
He nodded. “I’m fine,” he said. “At least I think I’m fine. Well, except for my dignity, I have none of that anymore.”
He opened the door to our dorm and kept it open for me.
“If it makes you feel any better, we’re all in this shithole together,” I replied. “I don’t think any one of us has any dignity.”
“That’s fun,” he said. “Has anyone else thrown up in front of everyone?”
“I mean, not quite like that,” I said. “That was something special.”
He snickered. “Well, I’m special,” he replied. “Clearly.”
I sat down at one of the chairs near the door as I nodded. I wondered if he was going to go sit down on his bed, but he sat down next to me in the other lounge chair. There were maybe four inches between us. I didn’t know what had happened, but there was something about the last few hours that made me want to get closer to him. Literally, of course, but emotionally too.
I supposed I had finally managed to see what Alix had seen ever since he had first set eyes on the guy. There was nothing boring about him. David wasn’t boring, like I had originally thought.
He was just mysterious. He was like one of those little Russian dolls, whatever they were called. I got my hand closer to his, which was resting on the side of the chair and remained still even as it looked like I was going to touch him. “I mean, I never doubted it,” I said.
He shook his head. “What happened?” he asked. “I mean, I don’t… it’s all sort of a blur, to be completely honest with you.”
“You just got up, looked like you were going to hurl,” I said. “Tried the bathroom, which was occupied—”
“I remember that—”
“And then tried the backdoor, which is always locked,” I said.
He frowned. “Okay, see, this is the part I don’t remember now,” he said. “Then what happened?”
“I held your hair,” I said, winking at him. “It was very romantic.”
He laughed, and before I knew it, our hands were touching. Compared to what the skin on his face had felt like, the skin in his hand was warm and soft. It was as if he could read my mind, because he hooked a finger around my pinkie.
I looked up at him, my eyes wide. I hadn’t been expecting him to do that. As far as I had been able to tell, David had zero interest in me. He had zero interest in anything that wasn’t his sketchpad.
But our fingers remained hooked even as I looked up at him, my mouth half open, as I tried to find some words to ask him what he was doing. There was something sweet about how casual this all was, about the way he had decided to hold me but not talk about it at all.
“Thank you,” he said. “You’ve been really nice to me ever since I got here, which I wasn’t expecting.”
“We’re not dicks,” I said, then looked up at the sky. “Well, not all of us are dicks. Pete has his moments.”
He laughed quietly at that. “Do you want to see what I’ve been working on?”
I looked at him for a long time.
His eyes narrowed slightly and he looked far more intense than he ever had before. “But you have to promise me,” he said, little creases appearing on his forehead. “Whatever you do, you won’t tell anyone else about it.”
“Sure,” I said.
He uncurled his finger from around mine and got up. There was a second when he sort of hovered in the air close to the seat, when he didn’t quite stand up and I thought he was going to talk to me about what had just happened between us.
Maybe it was nothing to him. I knew some people were touchy-feely, especially queer people, and he might as well have had “queer” tattooed on his forehead. But to me, it had been something, and I didn’t know how I was supposed to get that off my mind.
I could feel the electricity between us. Maybe it was my imagination—I could definitely believe that it was just my imagination. I watched him, all of him, as he walked over to his bed and leaned down to get the sketchbook.
My eyes widened as I realized that was what he was going to show me. He had been so intensely private with it I didn’t think I was ever going to see it. I didn’t really think any of us would.
He brought it over to where I was, holding it close to his chest. He met my gaze for a second then flashed me a timid smile, his multicolored eyes shining.
“Here you go,” he said.
He put the sketchpad on my knees. I looked down and my eyes widened at the artwork in front of me. I held my breath as I looked at it. It was me, a three-quarters profile of me, holding a book up in my hands. My sleeves were rolled up, the tattoo on my arm peeking out from under the fabric.
I had never liked my hands, but in his drawing, they looked exquisite. Long fingers with lines in the knuckles, short and sharp fingernails, but a strong grip of the book under them.
“You read a lot,” he said when it became clear I wasn’t going to say anything else. “When I walked in, you were reading.”
“Yeah,” I said.
“And then before we go to sleep, you read,” he said. “And, sometimes, when you have time in the morning, you read before breakfast.”
I looked at him, my heart beating fast in my chest. I didn’t know why his words were making me nervous. I guess I had never realized how closely he was paying attention.
“Oh,” he said, shaking his head, as if he realized what had just happened. “It’s not—fuck, okay, flip the page over.”
I blinked. “What?”
“Flip it over,” he said.
I did as I was told. My breath caught in my throat again when I saw the sketch of Alix. Alix wore his dark hair short, but in the drawing, it went down all the way to his shoulders and curled around his face. His eyes were darted toward one side, his mouth parted, his teeth perfect.
He looked exactly like Alix did, but he also looked like Alix would have if he was a model or something.
I looked up at David questioningly. Maybe our little moment was nothing and the pers
on he was interested in was Alix. He was pretty reserved, so I could see how I would have missed any signs.
When our gazes met, he laughed. “No,” he said, once again, as if he could read my mind. “No, I don’t like him like that. I just, I don’t know, have you ever noticed he looks a bit like one of those guys on the covers of the tattered books you like to read at night sometimes?”
My jaw dropped open. Part of me wanted to laugh, but I could feel how crimson red my cheeks were getting. I was finding it hard to speak, too.
“Hey, I’m not judging,” he said. “My favorite book is Flowers in The Attic.”
I laughed a little, though I still wanted the ground to swallow me. “It is?”
“Yeah,” he replied. “What can I say? I like a good, or terrible, good-terrible drama.”
I couldn’t say anything. There was nothing for me to say. I did read romance novels, the old ones, the ones where the dude with the ripped shirt always saved the girl.
The ones with swollen staffs, rigid parts and burning in loins. That wasn’t my favorite part, though in truth, I did enjoy it.
I mean, we didn’t have access to the internet, and I’ve always been a visual person. At seventeen, it wasn’t like my sex drive was going to die because I was in a group home with other boys, all of whom were good-looking.
David licked his lower lip as he set his gaze on me. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I get it.”
I sighed and stared at the ground. I tried to count the lines in the carpet as I desperately clung on to any shred of my dignity. He might have been the one that projectile vomited in front of everyone, but he was unspooling me as if I were cotton candy and he was reading into me far more than I had expected him to.
He was so quiet, my defenses had been down. But I had been wrong. He was observant and I was, well, stupid. I had been stupid. And I sure as hell wasn’t getting any better.
“What do you mean?” I heard myself ask.
“There’s nothing to do here,” he said. “Except get lost in other worlds. I get lost in faces, you get lost in words.”
