Page 105 of Silent Damage

I look down at his head resting on my chest. It hurts, knowing how long he’s been silent. I don’t understand it, but I want to help. “Gabe, do you want to talk about that night?” I ask.

“No,” he says with a shudder. “Please. I can’t.”

“Okay. You don’t have to. I’m here, though. I just want you to know.”

He nods. “Thank you.”

We lie there together for a while, and it starts hitting me how big this is. Two years. He hasn’t talked to people like this in two years.

“Gabe.”

“Hmm?”

I squeeze him and say, “Thank you. For letting me in. It means so much to me.”

Gabe kisses my chest and says, “You mean so much to me.”

“I’m so happy we’re friends again,” I tell him.

Gabe freezes for a second, his body kind of rigid, before he slowly relaxes and whispers, “Me too.”

Chapter 24

Gabe

Idon’t know how I managed to get to work on time. Torren had a box of coffee from Maggie’s when I arrived, and the seventeen cups I’ve had throughout the day are the only thing keeping me from falling asleep under this Subaru Outback.

I barely slept after Jason and I fucked in the bathtub because two words plagued my mind all night long: HellCats and Friends.

After everything that happened last night—the intimacy of it all, the confessions, my promise to speak to him—

I just didn't think all of that would lead to best buds.

But I have to push that out of my mind because being friends again is so much better than being enemies. Which is why I’m letting myself speak when I’m with Jason.

I’ve been so alone for so long—

And I deserved that! It was my way of putting myself in prison.

But Jason cracks through that feeling. He has my heart in a way others don’t, and the words flow because I don’t think about me or what I did when I’m with him.

It’s just him.

But I’m not ready to let my curtain fall for anyone else.

Then there’s the other word that plagued my thoughts all night.

HellCats.

I don’t think Jason understands what he’s gotten himself into. It’s not a game—people in that gang either rule by force or end up at the bottom of a lake. I know Jason’s tough—he wants to be something, but does it have to be this?

I feel sick thinking about what could happen to him.

It’s all too much right now.

Focus on work.

I sweep my flashlight along the exhaust pipe and find the split. Bingo. I press my gloved finger against the crack, and rust flakes fall.