“I—what?”
“I just need you to know,” he says slowly. “That it’s a lot. For me. The secrecy. If this is how it’s always going to be—a secret, a lie. It’s a lot, Colin. It’s a lot if I don’t have any hope that things might be different someday. Maybe…. It may be too much. Too much to live with and not… I just have to think. Okay?”
My head is spinning and my stomach’s churning, but he kisses my forehead before I can say anything, and walks out the door.
The words echo after he’s gone, though. Secret. Lie. Too much.
They echo for a long, long time.
Chapter 14
WHEN I was sixteen and broke my arm, the doctor at the hospital asked me to rate the pain on a scale of zero to ten, with zero being no pain and ten being the worst pain I could imagine. I wanted to look tough, sure. But also I could imagine oceans of pain so vast and incalculable they tipped this to practically nothing. So I told him it was a four. He smirked at me and gave me a pain pill anyway. What was worse than the pain, though, was the fear. When I first crashed Pop’s car, all I felt was pain, and I didn’t know what it meant. Was I going to look down and see that my arm had been torn off? Once I knew it was just broken, even though it hurt the same, it didn’t feel as bad. Broken bones heal. I knew that.
Every second since Rafe walked out my door has been a pain so different it’s shocking it can even be called the same thing. And rather than reacting like I usually do—wanting to disappear, wanting to obliterate myself—cut and punch and run and puke until there’s nothing left—now I feel like I need to do something. I’m vibrating with restless energy. I’m waiting for something and I don’t know when it will come. I’m teetering at the edge of a cliff, and a breeze from one direction or the other could end or save me.
In an attempt to fall in the right direction for once, I went back to work right after New Year’s, desperate to get out of the house, only to find that no one had been coming in since Pop died. I don’t know what Sam’s been up to because he hasn’t called me back about the shop. Luther took the week off to go to some aunt’s house or something. Brian’s been out, mostly. He says he’s following up on bartending gigs, but he has the manic look he only gets when he’s scheming about a girl, so I assume it has something to do with Callie and her puke-cat.
Alone in the shop, I’ve worked twelve-hour days and still wanted to do more. After I finished the repairs that had languished with Pop’s death, I cleaned up the whole shop, putting in order things that’ve been a mess for years. I’ve thrown away busted tools and organized good ones, shredded dozens of boxes of useless papers in Pop’s office and redone his filing system (less of a system and more of a stack, really), scrubbed every corner of the garage until the floor was clean enough to eat off of, and repainted the walls a blue-gray color that reminded me so much of the ocean outside Rafe’s beach house when I went to the paint store that I couldn’t help but buy it.
I’ve oiled every hinge and plastered every crack. I’ve cleaned the ductwork and installed a new phone with an intercom system from the office to the shop floor. I’ve sifted through every piece of hardware and organized it all. Ball bearings separated by size; hinges, gears, cotter pins, and springs categorized by type; wire neatly bundled. Every screw, rivet, nut, washer, O-ring, and shim has a home.
The messages start coming while I’m painting.
I’d given Anders my phone number back when he came to the shop needing to talk. I figured in case shit went seriously wrong at home, at least he could call. He’d never used it until now, though. I’m so sorry about your dad is all he writes. Rafe must’ve told the kids.
Before I can even write back to say thanks, another message comes through. Death effing sucks. Sorry Winchester ;) oh this is Carlos. Anders clearly gave him my number, too.
Then: So sorry sweetie. Let me know if U need cheering up!!! xoxoxo Mikal.
And: Condolences Colin. You don’t seem like a flower guy so I didn’t send any but I’m sorry for your loss. That one is unsigned but clearly from Mischa, echoing her parents’ country club style.
Then, from Mikal again: DeShawn says it’s totes inappropes to text U w/o permish. Sorry bb!!! We just <3 U! xoxoxoxoxo