“Seven.”
“Fuck.”
“Yeah.”
He goes still against me.
“Paul.”
The word lands in the room and the room gets smaller by two feet.
He sits up and pulls the sheet with him, wrapping it around his waist because he doesn't think about the fact that I've seen all of him and more. His hair's standing up on one side. He has pillow creases on his face. His lips are swollen.
He's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen, and I want to put him back down.
I don't. I sit up with him. I lean against the headboard. I put my hand on his back so he knows I'm here. He reaches for his phone on the floor where his jeans are and he turns it on and I watch his face go pale.
“How many?”
He swallows.
“Fourteen.”
“Jesus.”
His thumb swipes at the screen.
“Eleven texts. Three calls. One voicemail.”
“You listening to it?”
“No.”
I flatten my hand between his shoulder blades.
“Good.”
He sets the phone down on the mattress between us, face-up. The screen's still lit.PAUL (14). His hand's shaking a little. Not a lot. Enough that I notice.
I reach across and I put my hand on his.
“Hey.”
He looks at me.
“Breathe.”
He breathes.
“Put the phone face down.”
He does.
“Good boy.”
Something moves behind his eyes. I said it last night inside him and he came apart around it. I'm saying it now at seven in the morning in my bed and it lands differently but yet the same way. He breathes out slow.
“He's going to lose his mind.”
