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For a moment he’s frozen, his arms pinned beneath mine. He’s skinnier than me, though you wouldn’t notice by the baggy clothes he wears. Shorter too—always has been. But he shot up a lot in recent months, putting the top of his head just under my lips.
I seal my eyes shut, burying my face in his shoulder, breathing in his familiar scent—the cinnamon gum he loves so much, combined with the cloying earthy notes of weed, and something else. Something I can’t pinpoint, something that makes me think of hours spent in his bedroom, pouring over comics, and watching movies late into the night, glow-in-the-dark stars and planets shining down on us from his ceiling.
“Hey,” he whispers roughly.
I pull back, gripping his shoulders, and our gazes meet, my pale blue colliding with his warm, amber brown.
“It’s gonna be okay,” he utters in a surprisingly fierce voice, and for some reason, coming from him, I believe it.
Nodding, I give him a small, sad smile. “You’re my hero.”
“He’s gonna be okay,” Jeremy says, startling me out of my thoughts.
“I hate him sometimes,” I confess in a whisper.
“Jealous over him and Izzy?” he teases gently, infusing some much needed levity.
Shaking my head, I smile ruefully, “No.”
“Music then.”
I nod.
He looks down, lashes fanning over his cheeks. “It’s okay to feel that way. I get it.”
“What if he can’t—” My voice cuts off. Even just giving voice to the worry feels risky. Like it’ll tempt the universe too much.
Jeremy tilts his head, eyeing me with a look I can’t place. “The doctors said he should make a full recovery.”
Physically.
They said he should make a full recovery physically.
Still, I try to find relief in his assurances.
Because, for as much as I resent Waylon sometimes, the idea of him losing that…that genius part of him…
He needs it.
“Come on,” Jeremy says gently. “We should get back before Izzy wonders where you went.”
Nodding, I push up from the floor, dusting off my pants.
Jeremy leaves the alcove first, and I’m just about to follow, when realization rockets through me, halting me in my tracks.
Waylon…
“He couldn’t care less.” That’s what I always told myself, what I always believed.
In my mind’s eye, I see his eye roll.
His small, secret grin, he quickly covers with a vicious smirk.
The heated cheeks he hides by turning away to busy himself with something else.
The barbed comments…
He cares too much.
