Page 46 of Thin Ice

He put on the seatbelt.

She drove towards our side of the lake.

Chapter 12: Alex

Iwoke up warm.

That was the first thing. Not the room I didn't recognize, nor the sounds I'd never heard before. The warmth. Liam's arm across my ribs, his chest against my back, his breath slow and even against the top of my spine. His hand resting flat on my stomach, fingers spread, like he'd fallen asleep holding me in place.

I didn't move.

I let the room come into focus. It was small. Smaller than his dorm, even. A twin bed, a dresser, a desk pushed against the wall. The ceiling had a popcorn texture, and the dresser had a drawer that didn't close all the way, and the entire room felt like a version of Liam's side of the dorm at Riverside, just older. More permanent. More him.

I didn't mind it.

That was what I noticed first. Not the smallness. The fact that the smallness didn't bother me. After a lifetime in a house where every surface was polished and every object was arranged to make you feel the weight of the name that paid for it, this felt like breathing out. No one had curated this room. No one had chosen what went on the walls based on what a visitor should see. It was just a kid's bedroom that had become a teenager's bedroom that was still, in every corner, exactly and only what it was.

I can be myself here.

It was the best thing I'd felt since I walked out of my father's study.

Last night came back in pieces.

The car. Liam's mom driving south, the grocery bags shifting in the trunk at every turn. Walking through the front door into a kitchen that smelled like chili, warm and layered, the smell of a house that gets cooked in everyday. Liam's mom hanging my coat on the hook by the door. She didn't ask what happened. She put a bowl of chili in front of me and said "eat" and went back to wiping down the counter, and I ate the whole bowl without talking because I hadn't realized I was starving until the first bite.

Nobody watched me do it. Nobody asked if I wanted the good china, because there was no good china. It was the best meal I'd ever had.

Then the bedroom. Liam's twin bed, which was not built for two rowers. He'd pulled the covers back, and I'd gotten in, and he'd gotten in behind me and wrapped his arm around me and said nothing. We laid there in the dark listening to the house and the cold winter outside. The baseboard heater ticking. A clock somewhere in the hallway. The blanket smelled like laundry detergent that wasn't mine.

I hadn't cried. I'd wanted to. The pressure had been there all night, behind my eyes, this enormous thing being held back. But I hadn't let it go because if I started, I didn't know if I could stop.

So I'd just breathed. Let his warmth be the universe until sleep took over.

Now it was morning. It was all still there… Liam and the pain.

I turned over slowly. His face was six inches from mine on the pillow. Relaxed, unguarded. His hair was everywhere. His mouth was slightly open.

His eyes opened. Slow, unfocused, then finding me.

"Hey," he said.

"Hey."

"You sleep?"

"Yeah."

He pulled me closer. Just an inch. His forehead touched mine. We lay like that for a minute, breathing the same air.

"Thank you," I said.

"For what?"

"For last night. For coming. Your mom and the chili. All of it."

He kissed me.

"You don't have to thank me for that," he said. "That's not something you thank someone for. That's just what happens."