A Wealth of Unsaid Words (8 page)

apparently been given away, he had wandered around

instead, chatting with uncles and cousins—wishing he still

smoked and that he didn"t have uneaten donuts in his

pocket and a wooden duck in his luggage upstairs—and had

finally come out here.

The Faraday home was not as large a home as it

probably should have been, but it had a big yard and plenty

of thick, tall trees. There"d used to be one rather

conveniently located tree under Everett"s bedroom window,

but disease had taken it a few years back. The one in the

front yard was a similar size, currently frosted over and

without leaves, with an equally cold and bare bench beneath

it. He was frozen and shivering, but he hardly noticed. He"d

thought to bring his gloves at least, so all was not lost.

The sky had grown dark some time ago, making the

lights from inside glow brighter. Except for the lack of

blanketing snow, the house looked like a Christmas card,

but he didn"t think that with the venom that some might

have. He could still hear people talking inside, though the

children must have been sent to bed already, their fun with

what had once been a beautiful tree over. The adults were

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A Wealth of Unsaid Words • R. Cooper

having their time now, catching up, hearing stories, fighting

exhaustion in the name of spending time with loved ones.

It was stupid for him to still be out here, freezing his ass

off in full view of the neighbors who had never much liked

him anyway. Their disapproving stares had never faded, not

even after Everett"s parents had registered as fosters and

reported his father for his own good. His father had always

been back again before too long, momentarily medicated,

sometimes overmedicated, though everyone, the neighbors

included, had known it wouldn"t last.

This house hadn"t had enough room for four children

and two parents and the always visiting cousins, but the

Faradays had redone their basement to give Alex a place to

stay, something he knew had been partly a young Everett"s

doing. He"d been born a crusader, flaming sword in hand.

Unfortunately, as Alex had recently learned, the

basement room had already been promised to Aunt Gigi and

her children. Everett, just to further test Alex"s mad resolve,

had volunteered that they share his room.

Alex exhaled.

They had not done that since they truly had been

children. The temptation in doing it now was undeniable, so

he didn"t try to deny it, though he did run the thought

through his mind the way he always did, cursing therapists,

cursing checklists, cursing madness in general. He could

also curse fate, something he could believe in when he didn"t

believe in much else. He
was
crazy after all, and was never

quite sure about things like that. He"d also once believed

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A Wealth of Unsaid Words • R. Cooper

that his father"s long silences had been because of

something he had done to upset him and that his father

buying every single box of cereal in the store for him was the

kind of fun, happy memory that every child had of their dad.

Both had actually meant his father had loved him.

Sanity was a strange thing. Like distance, it offered

perspective, and with it, Alex no longer had to choose

between giving someone everything or pushing them away to

protect them, not if he didn"t want to.

And because there was fate, or because there was a god

after all and he loved the seething brains of lovers, poets,

and madmen, the door from the kitchen slammed closed

behind Everett as he came outside and crossed the yard.

He stamped his feet when he reached the bench, then

sat down and said nothing for a few long minutes. He hadn"t

bothered with more than his coat and finally coughed and

scooted closer to Alex, probably for warmth. Alex looked over

at him and the soft grin illuminated by hundreds of

twinkling lights.

“That"s enough of this for now, don"t you think?” Everett

remarked with the suspicious calm of a nurse—or a social

worker who had seen it all, but he was still smiling as he

turned to face the house again.

“Everett, you know not to interrupt a brooder when he"s

brooding. It"s like waking a sleepwalker,” Alex responded

seriously, but moved when Everett did, letting himself be

pulled to his feet, his cold hand in Everett"s chilled one as

they walked back toward the house.

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A Wealth of Unsaid Words • R. Cooper

It was another thing they had not done in years, but

when Everett did not let go, Alex chose not to comment. He

thought of inches again, of miles, and distance, and then

remembered that Everett was often a sneaky bastard, who

took inches as miles and then smiled so Alex would not

mind, not that he ever had.

achel and Molly were still downstairs with the

busybody roommate and some of the aunts and

R uncles, enjoying their adult time without the

children. Alex was invited to join them, but they

seemed used to his ways and didn"t press when he said he

was going to bed early. No one, save Molly, even commented

when Everett added he was tired as well, though Alex had

glanced at him.

A few years ago Ally had sworn she wasn"t going to

exhaust herself anymore baking and cooking for three days

when she had perfectly capable adult children to help her,

and of all of them, only Everett had shown any aptitude for

baking, so it was Everett who would be up early on

Christmas Eve to make all the sweet breads and rolls and

desserts for Christmas, leaving the others to help with the

cooking. He had every reason to collapse into bed while the

night was still young. Nonetheless, Alex sat on the edge of

the bed and said nothing while Everett stripped off his layers

and replaced them with blue pajama pants and a fresh T-

shirt.

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A Wealth of Unsaid Words • R. Cooper

His eyes met Alex"s in odd moments, so Everett had to

be aware of how Alex could not stop staring at him, yet there

was innocence on his face as he kicked off his jeans, as if

they were still kids. Perhaps that was how Everett thought of

him, but Alex couldn"t resent it, not when it was saving him

again. He was embarrassingly flushed, too tense to sleep,

trembling, and Everett was still
smiling
at him.

The heating vent to Everett"s room had never been fully

functional, but that wasn"t why Alex shook. For all their

closeness as children, as teenagers, it had been years since

he had seen Everett"s long bare limbs, or his stomach, or the

lines of his back as he moved. It was like seeing him for the

first time in his man"s body, patches of hair and unknown

muscle, enough to make Alex close his hands tight, as

though he was holding on to a scrap of wax paper again.

Everett had always been tall, though he had only filled

out toward the end of high school. His grace had been harder

to achieve, but there was no sign that he"d ever been

awkward as he bent and twisted and revealed almost every

inch of himself as he dealt with his dirty clothes and grabbed

his toothbrush to head down the hall.

Everett was a ridiculously brave child grown into a

ridiculously brave man, with a glow of faith in his eyes that

even Alex had failed to dim for long. It had been there by

that very window, and in a hospital psych ward, in Alex"s

apartment amid a pile of trash and stupid convenience store

crap, and after hearing stories of drugs and sex with people

Alex couldn"t even remember.

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A Wealth of Unsaid Words • R. Cooper

“If I drug my mind….”
If he
stayed
drugged was what he

had meant, but Everett had understood. They had finished

each other"s sentences often enough.
“What if I’m no longer

me, afterward? What if I won’t have anything more to say?”