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“Okay, tomorrow. I’ll pick you up? Around seven?”
“Yeah, seven is good. Seven is perfect.” Matty grinned broadly, his unmistaken happiness transferring to Austin like an out-of-control-wildfire.
“Okay,” Austin whispered, his heart trying to pound its way through his chest at the thought of being alone with Matty. To finally be alone with him.Shit, he was gonna be alone with Matty!
“Okay. I gotta go. See you tomorrow?” There was a light lilt to the boy’s soft voice as if he needed for Austin to reassure him that they were in fact meeting tomorrow. In an unwavering voice, Austin spoke, his eyes not leaving Matty’s.
“Yes. I’ll see you tomorrow, Matty.”
“Seven o’clock?”
“Seven o’clock.”
Matty nodded, still smiling, before he turned around and disappeared into the bait shop. Austin stood, a goofy grin splayed across his face, his heart still pounding as if he’d just run a goddamn marathon.
Fuck,he thought to himself. He needed to jack off at least twice tomorrow before going to the beach with Matty,even though he doubted that that would do the trick.Austin had a feeling that he could jack off until his dick was covered in friction marks, and it still wouldn’t put a damper on the neediness he felt whenever he was close to Matty. Well, at least they’d be in the water most of the time.Fuck.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Ethan – Then
“YOU FUCKING CHEATED,man!” Matty yelled at him as he threw his old bicycle by the side of the gravel road. He wiped at the sweat on his forehead and squinted at Ethan. “We agreed on five! Not three.”
“No way, dude. I clearly said three. Who would go on five anyway? It’s always beenone-two-three-go!” Ethan kicked at the ground stubbornly, dust filling the space between them, coloring the tips of his sneakers red.
“Whatever,” Matty mumbled in front of him. “Let’s just get in the water…” It was a blistering hot July day and nearly every day since school was out, they’d ridden out on their bikes to the deserted gravel pit. No one had used it for a while—abandoned, it had been left for free-range kids like Ethan and Matty to swim in the basin at the bottom of the pit.
They headed down the steep side, their worn sneakers slipping on small rocks, adding a few scrapes and bruises to their already busted up knees. Ethan had just turned ten in April whereas Matty didn’t turn that corner until October. July was their favorite month of the year. Fucking school was out and they could roam the fields and the dusty country roads as much as they wanted. For the most part, Matty could get away with sleeping over at Ethan’s place, giving him a reprieve from life at the Craig house.
When they got to the bottom of the pit, they both quickly stripped out of their dirty clothes stained with triple berry jam and down to their underwear. Still boys, their legs, and arms skinny, even though Ethan had always been more built than Matty, who looked a few years younger than he was.
As they stood next to each other, Ethan glanced at his best friend and noticed the scattering of fresh bruises along Matty’s left hip and upper leg. The ones on his upper arms had faded slightly, faint yellows and purples in the outline of five phantom fingers. Ethan couldn’t recall a time when Matty hadn’t been covered in bruises in various colors. It had just always been like that for as long as he could remember. In various stages of healing, some were dark purple, black even while others were green or yellow. Matty’s frail body was like an almanac of carefully inflicted pain:Monday, a fist to his left upper arm. Tuesday, a boot to his abdomen, Wednesday, ten welts distributed evenly, almost meticulously across the back of his pale thighs…
For a while now, Ethan had stopped believing that Matty was a clumsy child. Well, at least he wasn’t any clumsier than Ethan was, and he sure as shit wasn’t covered in bruises from head to toe. And in any case, they weren’t the kinda scrapes and cuts Ethan had, which were mostly on his elbows and knees from falling on his bicycle or in the playground at school. No, they were more like actual prints as if a large hand had pulled roughly at Matty’s slender upper arm or if a pair of knuckles had connected with the soft tissue. Ethan often wondered that with the number of bruises on the outside, how Matty must feel on the inside.
Matty caught Ethan’s stare and shrugged his narrow shoulders.
“It’s getting worse,” Ethan whispered, nearly choking on the words.
“Yeah, maybe…” Matty drew in a breath, his shoulders in a resigned slump. “It’s mostly when he’s drunk. Or when I get in the way.”
“Matty… We could tell someone, you know.”
“Yeah? Who are we gonna tell, Eth? Huh? The police?” Matty looked at his best friend, the words a bitter ring to them.
“Yeah, maybe,” Ethan replied, looking out at the turquois water.
“And how do ya think that would go down? My fatheristhe police, Eth. And my mom will just deny it all anyway.” Matty didn’t blink, his voice devoid of any kind of emotions.
“You don’t know that, Matty.” But Ethan knew that Matty was probably right. Afterall, Fiona Craig didn’t strike Ethan as someone who would stand up for herself, let alone her son. And everyone in Eden was afraid of Chief Craig anyway.
Matty shook his head, blond curls everywhere before he started walking into the chilled water, his slight figure gliding through the still, bluish green surface. Once the water reached his stomach, he turned around and smiled at Ethan. If you didn’t know Matty, you would think that he looked just like any other West Texan kid smiling under the fierce July sun. But if you looked close enough, you would see that the smile never reached his sky-blue eyes. They were for the most part expressionless, devoid of any kind of emotion, good or bad.
Blinking away his unshed tears, Ethan looked at the best person he knew and started walking out into the water towards Matty. It was in that moment, as he felt the cool water brush against his shins that Ethan made a promise to himself. That even if he was just a child, he’d do whatever he could to protect Matty. Even if it meant getting hurt in the process. Or hurting someone himself. Because somehow in his young mind he already knew that Matty was gonna need protecting. And he was gonna need someone to have his back. And the grown-ups in Matty’s life weren’t exactly volunteering to be the ones to do that. So, Ethan decided it was gonna be him.
It wasn’t a choice, as far as Ethan saw it. It felt just as natural as brushing your teeth in the morning or using your right hand instead of your left to write your history paper. It wasinstinctual. He’d learned the word just last week when they’d watched a documentary in Ms. Henley’s biology class. It was about penguins. Thousands and thousands of penguins. The baby penguins all looked the same to Ethan—super cute and fluffy, calling out desperately for their parents coming back from the sea. And amid all that chaos, an ocean of black and white, desperate calls of hunger, every adult penguin in the end managed to find exactly their baby. Every single time.Instinctual,Ms. Henley had called it. The distinct sound of their baby was imprinted into every adult penguin, even though they all sounded the same to the human ear. That’s the way he felt about Matty. How he’d always felt about his best friend ever since that day at baseball practice when Matty had literally stumbled into Ethan’s life. Matty was his baby penguin. His to protect. And he’d always know how to find his way back to him.Instinctually.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
