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“No, no,” he reassured me, snapping back to reality. “It’s just... no one ever acknowledged that he wasn’t something wrong, you know?”
It made me furious that anyone would say Roman was wrong, that Hiro was. Yet I understood, it was how I just felt telling him about my shadows.
We continued walking in silence for a few moments while I tried to find the right words that weren’t colored by my frustration at how the world viewed him. All I had to offer Hiro was empathy and understanding.
“I get that a lot, too,” I admitted. “I was raised by a gambling, absentee father then an abusive grandmother who thought I was possessed. It wasn’t like we asked for this, but we’re also not broken because of it.”
“We aren’t,” he agreed, and the smile on his face had my breath catching. Hiro was beautiful. It was a strange way to describe a guy, especially one taller than me. But he was.
His hair was soft and shiny, his eyes bright green and expressive, even his perfectly straight smile lit up his face to make it even more stunning. There was a shadow of facial hair on his chin but it didn’t take away from his overall softness.
I was lucky to have him, I just wished I knew how to express that. Navigating mates was hard, doing it in a setting like this was damn near impossible.
“Do you like stories?” he asked so abruptly it broke the moment between us.
“What?” I asked, confused. “Like bedtime stories?”
He reached in his backpack and pulled out a well-worn book. “It’s a collection of various mythology. It’s my nerdy specialty.” His smile faltered at my silence, and I could practically see him second-guessing himself.
“I’ve never really had a chance to dive into mythology. I spent a lot of years in a strict house, then on the streets. Sometimes homelessness is better than the ‘home’ you grew up in,” I admitted.
“I was homeless, too,” Hiro admitted. “Roman kept us alive and at the time we had more alters. The stress of it all brought more out to play, I think. That year was a blur. By the time we got picked up and sent to a state inpatient facility, I was barely functioning. It was just as hard to manage as being homeless. Despite Dark Haven’s faults, it saved me, too. When I came here I started proper medication, found friends, sort of... more importantly, I found myself.”
“Was it weird losing the other alters?” I asked. “Sad?”
He thought it over as he clutched the book. His hand was still in mine, so I stroked it with my thumb.
“Having DID means I spend a lot of time forgetting things and having time blocks. I knew there were more but we weren’t good at communicating like some are. If not for journals I’d be completely lost. So no, it’s not really sad, more like... a blank space that I can’t make full sense of.”
I could tell he was uncomfortable now, and the last thing I wanted was for him to pull away from me. We needed a major subject change, one that didn’t involve reliving our pasts.
“Will you read one to me?”
You’d have thought I asked him if he wanted Christmas to come early with the way he let out an excited laugh. Now he wasn’t just walking with me, he was running to lead me to the gazebo. We sat down on the bench, and I snuggled into his side as a breeze blew over us. He tensed slightly before relaxing and wrapping an arm around my shoulders, his free hand holding the book while I turned the pages. Neither one of us knew how to take the casual touches but we craved it.
I couldn’t tell you what the myth was about. His voice was low and soothing, and I let it wash over me as I considered all the shit that had happened over the last week and why I was letting myself get so comfortable here.
Yet I was powerless to stop it. For the first time, I was making real friends and finding myself. And that was almost worth the pain I’d fought through to make it to this very moment.
Dark Haven wasn’t perfect, but it was quickly becoming the first real home I’d ever had.
Even if it felt like I was being watched at all times… even now in this moment of peace.
Harlow
Saturday Morning
Third Floor
Something shifting on my bed had me bolting upright. My heart pounded in my chest as I frantically glanced around, expecting a monster to be attacking me again.
Instead, it was Layne, crouched on the end of my bed like a goblin.
“Morning. You sleep deep,” she commented before hopping down and flipping on my lights.
I groaned at the sharp sting and covered my head. “Layne, what the hell?” When she didn’t respond I pulled my cover down and blinked to adjust my eyes.
She was perched by the door, leaning against the wall with a wide, unapologetic grin.
