Eli’s next laugh was caught up in his mouth as he kissed him. “God, puppy.” And his eyes were bright with pain and pleasure and Samuel’s stomach clenched so hard he thought he might vomit. How was he going to be without this man? How could he possibly go back to the life of before?Phone calls, he reminded himself.Letters.
“Maybe I shouldn’t,” Eli said. His voice had dropped some more. “Touch him, I mean. Until you get out.”
He blinked. Then he shot up onto his elbows, nearly cracking his head on the underside of the bunk. “Eli, you can’t. You have to. Nathaniel needs—”
Eli put a hand in his hair. “Hush,” he said. “I know.” But then his lips thinned out with the pressure he was putting on them, and his forehead cracked with lines. “It won’t feel right. Not without you. Knowing I’ve left you behind. Samuel—”
He kissed him. He didn’t know what else to do. He couldn’t have Eli falling apart now. The man’s courage was the only thing keeping him together. And he’d promised not to cry. “Make love to him. Every day if you can. If I know that—if I can picture you together—I’ll be able to breathe. Please, Eli.”
And he knew Eli would see how much he needed it. The way Eli could always see him now. Every thought. Every feeling. He was more open to Eli than he could ever be to himself.
They skipped breakfast the next morning. The moment the lights came on, they went to the closet and kept their armsaround each other until it was time to go. He knew it was time because Rat came to the door to tell them so. And he thought, as he climbed to his feet, that he was helping Eli up. But then his hand wouldn’t let go. He willed it to. Then he thought of peeling it free manually. But he didn’t. He couldn’t.
“I wish it was you going.” Eli’s voice was splintering wood. “I wish I was stronger than this. I wish I knew how to—”
He shook his head. “No.” And then, to give himself strength, “Nat.” And forced himself to let go.
He made Rat take Eli to the gate. It had to be Rat, because Bee had been transferred, and Rat was better anyway. He always knew what was needed, and what to say. He could be trusted to complete the handoff. And Samuel did trust him. He knew that now. But his competence wasn’t the point. It wasn’t Rat’s duty to do this. Samuel should have been the one doing it. He knew it was what Nat was expecting, and what he deserved. But making his hand let go—just that one almost invisible gesture—had been the sum total of his courage.
“Eli.”
His voice didn’t have any sound, and he couldn’t hear it. The name was just a shape. A thing inside him that couldn’t be the warmth he needed.
He stayed in the closet all that day. People came to the door and tried to say things to him. Messages maybe. He knew he had to open the door. Had to get up. Had to call Jenny. He wasn’t allowed to miss a day, or she’d think something had happened to him. But he didn’t get up. He kept thinking he would. He’d go in just a moment. One more moment.
He fell asleep at some point, because he woke up to Mathews banging on the door. “Back to the dorm. Lights out.”
He knew if he waited a few minutes Mathews would call for backup and then they’d drag him to his bunk. It was thepath he would have chosen—it sounded easier than walking. But his promise was there, pinching and pulling. He wasn’t allowed to be stupid. No fights. No nights in solitary. But the words “extra time” didn’t mean much to him right then. What was the difference between one year and one thousand when just a single moment stretched wide into a blackness with no edges? But he’d promised, and it was pinching him, so he got to his feet.
It was the thought of Eli’s scent that got each step out of him. One foot in front of the other and then it would be Eli’s sheets. Eli’s pillow. If he wrapped them around himself tight enough, it would almost be like arms.
It didn’t take long to notice. A bare mattress always looked like a bare mattress. But his brain didn’t attach meaning to it right away. He looked around himself. He wouldn’t have been surprised to have accidentally gotten the wrong dormitory with the state he was in. But it was the right room. The right bed. Eli’s sheets were gone.
“No.”
Of course they were gone. They would have been stripped off within the hour of his release along with everything else going down to laundry for the day.
“No,no.”
If he hadn’t been so weak. If he’d forced himself to get up sooner… He scrambled up onto the bed and pressed his face into it, but the mattress was a thing wrapped in plastic. It didn’t retain smells. It didn’t retain anything.
His hand went to his hair. To grab hold of it, tear at it, maybe rip it all directly from the scalp. But then something was pushed at him. And there was urgency in the voice giving it, as if it knew exactly what those hands were capable of. “Here. I took it. From his bag.Here.” And he knew it from the scent. Eli’s shirt. Rescued before it could be purged.
He pressed his face into it and inhaled deep, glad for thatair in his lungs again. Rat pushed him down onto the bed. “Go to sleep,” and he sounded exhausted. “Just go to sleep.”
He vowed to do better the next morning. He had a hold of himself, or would have it soon, he figured. Until then he just had to give himself over to habit. His body knew what it had to do. The shower wasn’t so difficult. He made it cold so he wouldn’t have time to think about what was missing. And breakfast was easy too, because Rat got it for him and all he had to focus on was clearing the tray. He didn’t want to eat, even with the hunger pulling at him. But he ate, mostly to make Rat take the tray away faster so he wouldn’t have to look at it anymore. And then he was in the library, and that was better than the dorm or the cafeteria. Eli hadn’t been able to spend so much time in the library because of his work detail. But there were still memories. Too many memories. There was also paper and his typewriter and the story of the baby lemurs he was supposed to be illustrating, so he did that, drawing just to make his pencil move.
“Is that a monkey in a tutu?”
He didn’t look up. “Go away.” He knew Rat was being good to him—verygood to him. But he couldn’t afford to break his concentration when something was finally distracting him.
“Right. I’ll just tell him you’re too busy doodling. I’m sure he’ll understand.”
He gave that a half-grunt, a clear dismissal, but Rat was only halfway to the door before the words connected. “Tell who?”
“Who do you think?”
Samuel was already through the door.
He’d told himself not to expect it. Eli had just gotten out and the family would be busy settling him in. There were so many things that needed to be done for him. Paperwork and shopping and Samuel had told himself not to expect anyone for a week. Had even prepared himself not to see them at all, despitethe assurances.
It was too early in the day for Nat to come, and Jenny would still be at work.Don’t think!His brain shouted, a last-ditch effort to save himself from disappointment. But he was already hoping, already calling, shouting that name before he was in the final hallway, much less at the gate. He shouted it with all his breath, wasting what should have gone into his legs, but still he ran. No one could have stopped him.
It wasn’t the lack of orange, but the jeans he noticed first. Jeans and a crisp shirt as white as his teeth. The man knew how good he looked. That was clear from the way he was leaning against the table, somehow not toppling it over despite all that weight. “Hey, puppy,” Eli said, a smile like a thousand stars.
End ofThe Care of Broken Things
