Page 80 of On Your Knees

Patrick sets the mugs on the counter. “No. I didn’t know he felt that way. But we don’t really talk, I guess. Not like that.”

For a few minutes, we busy ourselves, but then we’re sitting at the table kitty corner to each other and Patrick asks, “So are you going to tell me why Ethan left?”

“I don’t know why he left, not… well, not exactly.”

“Nothing happened? Nothing… physical?”

I shake my head. “We were talking. About… Paul.”

I watch Patrick for his reaction, wondering what he knows. His expression grows stormy. His hands curl around his mug.

I probe, “He’s… talked to you about Paul?”

Patrick replies shortly, “No. He hasn’t talked to me about Paul. Ever.”

I rotate my mug in my hands, unsure how to go about this when I can’t possibly reveal what Ethan told me. I try, “But you know something.”

“Some things are pretty fucking obvious after ten years. God, I can’t believe he went back to that goddamn church.”

“You think Paul was a bad person.”

“I think he was a fucking—” Patrick cuts himself off. Eyes closed, he takes a deep, steadying breath. Then he says stiffly, “Yes, I think he was a bad person. And I think it’s a very good thing that he’s dead.”

“Because he hurt Ethan.”

Patrick’s eyes jump to me. “He told you that?”

“Not exactly. But I’ve been looking things up. Pictures. Articles. And I can’t stop thinking about Ethan’s face. In the early pictures.”

“Yeah, I’ve seen those too. And that’s a kid that needed help, which is not what he got from the Castles. I’m very fucking sure of that.”

“Because of what happened, you mean. With his mother.”

Patrick stills. “Did he tell you that?”

“I read it,” I say quietly and brace myself for the attack that I know I deserve. Under the sleeves of my navy hoodie, I know what’s there. Patrick knows too.

But the attack that I expect doesn’t come. Patrick mutters, “Shit. Are you okay?”

I swallow hard. “I won’t do it again. I promise.”

“That’s not what I asked you. Are you okay?”

Tears spring to my eyes as guilt swamps me, along with a huge sense of undeserving. He shouldn’t be nice to me. I know what I put Ethan through that night.

“Yeah,” I mutter, swiping my sleeve across my face. “I’m fine. I don’t want to talk about it.”

“That’s okay, Levi. We don’t have to. But you can talk about it. If you want, I mean. If not to Ethan, then to me. I know he’s going through shit right now, but so are you.”

A weight lifts off me. A breath eases from my lungs.

For a while, we sit there, silent, mugs steaming but untouched. I look at Patrick again, studying him as he stares blindly at his coffee, and I can’t make sense of something.

I begin with what’s clear. “You love him.”

Patrick is startled. His eyes jump up to mine. I can tell that he’s unsure of my feelings about that fact, but he doesn’t deny it.

He says, “I do, yes, but not like you maybe think. I’m not in love with him.”