Page 25 of Icarus

“Is he always like that?” Icarus asked quietly.

Helios just huffed, an angry frustrated sound. His hand was clasped firmly over his ear. His face was red, with embarrassment or anger or pain. Something.

Icarus reached out, then faltered.

“You don’t have to stay,” Helios said, sharply.

“It’s . . . it’s not—” Icarus pressed his lips together in frustration, trying to find the right words. “You didn’t even do anything.”

“You don’t know that; you don’t even know me,” Helios snapped.

“I don’t have to know you to know that was unwarranted,” Icarus said firmly. “Don’t be embarrassed about this. So what if you were scared in front of me? He’s frightening. You’re the one acting normal, he’s not. That’s all there is.”

Helios shut his eyes very very tight and turned even further away.

Icarus pulled the curtains open and got up from the bed. He heel-toe soft-walked silently across the room and picked up the book that Mr. Black had thrown, bringing it back to Helios’s nightstand.

“I won’t leave you here alone in this situation,” he promised.

Helios stayed facing the dark.

Icarus grit his teeth. He didn’t know what else to say, so he slipped his shoes on and fled.

Ream

The next day felt like a thick soup.

He walked through the halls and sat in class, ate lunch, and went back to class in a haze dense enough to catch Celestina’s notice.

She dragged him out behind the school and into the woods.

Icarus walked beside her in comfortable silence, thinking. He could still feel the bones shifting beneath Helios’s skin. His skin had been so soft; softer than anyone’s he’d ever felt. Hairy too. He thought about the scrape of Helios’s ankle monitor against his forearm; the wire brushed metal was a tad too sharp. It should have been rounded and smoothed down for comfort, but it hadn’t.

And in a house as grand as that, it had to be intentional. A part of his punishment.

The bed had shaken beneath him like nothing else Icarus had ever felt before. He’d only ever been in a bed alone. Sitting on someone’s bed politely is one thing, but lying flat, his cheek crushed into the sheets, warm beneath the covers, and touching—regardless of the circumstances—was new.

New enough that, once the fear passed, his heart raced at the thought of it. Playing like a skipping track.

Celestina waved a hand in front of his face.

“You’re really out of it today, huh?” she said sprightly.

Icarus forced a smile. If the look on Celestina’s face was any indication, it didn’t land.

“Are you okay?” she asked, her pretty eyebrows pinching together.

Icarus closed his eyes and tilted his head back. He opened them to the green canopy above them and stared up to the sun filtering through.

“I’ll be okay,” he said. “I just had a rough night. One of my . . . friends is having a hard time.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

Icarus shrugged one shoulder uncomfortably.

“Not really? It’s nothing anyone can really do anything about.”

Celestina looked very very sad for a moment.