And neither can he.
Chapter Twelve
I lie with my head against Duncan’s chest. I like listening to his breathing. It’s so slow, controlled. I swear he breathes slower than I do. There’s something relaxing, hypnotic even, about the movement of my head on his chest as it rises… then falls.
“Your heart,” I whisper all of a sudden, frowning. “What the hell?”
“What is it?”
I gaze at my clock, watch the seconds hand tick by.
“It’s really slow.”
“Last time I measured, my resting rate was forty-five.”
“Forty-five?” I echo in disbelief. I think the last time I measured, my resting was in the eighties.
Sometimes, as I listen, I think that his heart has stopped, but then I’ll hear the beat, that one huge thud in his chest.
His skin is so warm, like he’s got a burning furnace inside of him. His body heat radiates into me, and when he wraps me up in his arms, I feel so safe, so comfortable, like I’ve escaped from everything I don’t like about my life, from the world altogether.
It’s just me and him, together, alone, without a worry in the world. I’ve got school in the morning, but fuck it, I want to stay up. We shouldn’t be in here together, lying naked like this, but fuck it, it’s what I want to do.
I feel immature thinking this way. I feel like a caricature of a young adult rebelling, but I can’t help it. It’s just the way he makes me feel.
I run my hand over his stomach, feel the bump of every abdominal muscle. His body is so tight, so trained. I know it can’t have been easy to get it like this. The discipline… it’s attractive. He’s in control of himself, and I like that.
“Duncan,” I say, trailing my finger up his chest to where the deep black tattoo of a house is on one side. “What is this of?”
He shifts a little under me. “It’s from a photograph,” he says.
“Of a house?”
“The group home I spent the most time in.”
“Why did you get a tattoo of it?”
“Have to remember where you came from.”
“Sometimes some of us want to forget,” I murmur.
He strokes my hair, fiddles with it, plays with it. I know he’s going to make knots that I’ll have to brush out, but I like that he does it.
“Was it like what you see on television? Living in a group home I mean.”
“I don’t know,” he says. “Our television didn’t work half the time.”
“I mean, like, violence, drugs, kids skipping school, that kind of thing?”
He laughs. “I didn’t go to school for three-quarters of the year.”
“You didn’t get in trouble for that?”
“Who would get me in trouble? The truancy officers didn’t really care, they were just there for a quick buck. The teachers at the school focused on what they could: The kids who did turn up. Sand always falls through the cracks in your hand.”
“What about social workers at the home?”
He delves into his memories. “There were other boys who took up all their time, constantly getting into fights, getting into trouble with the police. Shoplifting, usually, but some started working corners real early. Or doing drug runs on bicycles.”
“Did you ever shoplift?”
“Yeah, every winter for nice jackets.”
“How did you even get out of the shop with a huge coat?”
“We’d run a whole system, you know?” he says, a kind of half-guilty, half-mischievous grin tugging at his lips. “One boy distracts the staff, the other pretends to fall over and knocks some stuff over. A few of us walk in, grab, and run.”
“Did you ever get caught?”
“Caught, no. Chased, yes.” He sighs. “It’s not like I’m proud of it. Half the time during winter we were never warm enough to spend a long time outside, and we always preferred to be outdoors than in the house.”
“Why?”
“It was brighter. We’d fool around, you know? Spit at cars from a bridge, throw ice at people… that kind of thing. It was better than being in a shitty house that was barely warm enough and hardly clean enough.”
“Was it tough?”
He shrugs. “I got used to it. There’s a way things work like with anything in life.”
“I read about it,” I say. “It was in a book Frank gave me for my birthday before, written by a teacher who worked with kids like…” I trail off.
“Like me?”
“Yeah. Sorry, I don’t mean it in a bad way.”
“What’s bad about it? I’m not ashamed of who I am or how I grew up.”
“Anyway, the writer said violence is a big problem.”