Kit’s POV

I had only been asleep for a few minutes before a scream cut through the apartment. I sat up from the bed and immediately ran to Cody’s room. I had heard the scream plenty of times back in rehab and knew nothing good came from it.

Cody was panting when I burst through his door. He sat on his bed, hair wild, sweat pouring off his face, trying to get any amount of air into his lungs, with a hand pressed against his chest.

“Hey,” I said as I knelt on the bed in front of him. “It’s just Kit. You’re at our apartment. You made it out. Everything is okay now.” Cody was shaking his head, likely not convinced I was right. “Three things you can see,” I told him as I put one hand over the one on his chest while the other played with his hair.

“Bed sheets,” he gasped out as he gripped my hand harshly. He knew the routine, we’d done this plenty of times but it didn’t make getting the words out any easier. 

“Be specific.”

“Blue bed sheets.”

“Good. Two more.”

“You. You look tired. And the walls. They look black with the lights off.”

“Good. Three things you can feel.”

“The blankets, they’re soft and too hot. I feel you. I feel the tag of this shirt on the back of my neck.” He was still gasping and I could see the panic in his eyes but it was slowly getting better. 

“Three things you can hear.”

“The refrigerator. It’s doing that clicking noise we all hate again. The air conditioner from the apartment upstairs is on. I can hear my heart beating. It’s loud and I can’t make it stop.”

“I know it’s hard but you’re doing so well. I’m so proud of you. Three things you can smell.”

“I smell your body wash. It’s nice. Smells like mint. I smell the laundry detergent on the bed sheets. I smell dinner from earlier in the kitchen. Sorry, I burned it.”

“I don’t care about burnt food. It’s the last thing on my mind right now.”

“I wasted food that I didn’t even pay for,” he said, his heart rate had been declining but it shot back up at his words. “I’m sorry. I won’t cook again.”

“You can cook and burn as much food as you want. None of us care. It wasn’t a big deal and no one got hurt so that’s all that matters.” He didn’t look convinced but didn’t bother trying to argue anymore. “Have you ever heard of deep pressure,” I asked him just to keep his mind off of whatever was going on in his brain.

“No.”

“Roland taught me. It’s supposed to help with grounding and it helps him a lot. Do you want to try it?”

“How do you do it?”

“It’s pretty much just a big hug that’s really tight.”

“So a tight cuddle then,” he asked as he looked up at me with wide eyes. “I thought you wouldn’t want to do it anymore now that you have a boyfriend.” 

“He’s not the type to get jealous over things like this. If it will help you then he would want me to do it.”

“He seems like the jealous type,” Cody said with a small smirk. “That shirt he bought makes him seem like the jealous type.” I shoved his shoulder lightly but waited for his real answer. “It couldn’t hurt I guess.”

I didn’t wait a second before moving behind him and wrapping my arms around him, forcing his knees to his chest like Roland always did.

“Is this good,” I asked when I got situated in the normal position Roland and I always used.

“You could go a bit looser,” he said, struggling to breathe under the tight grip. I did as he said and his body relaxed. “Better,” he sighed as he leaned into my chest. “I’ve missed this. I didn’t think we would get to do it anymore.”

“I missed it too but you should have known better. I wouldn’t date someone who wouldn’t let me help my friends when they need it.”

“I was worried that place may have changed you,” he said barely above a whisper. “It’s been a year you know, a lot can change in a year.”

“Never this,” I said as I continued to play with his hair. “Do you want to talk about it? About whatever made you scream like that?”

“Just a nightmare.”

“About foster care? Or the group home?”

“The group home. They were awful.”

“I know they were,” I soothed, my fingers never leaving his hair as he relaxed farther into me, his head resting against my shoulder.

“We were playing poker,” he told me; I didn’t know if he was referring to the dream or a memory but I listened. “It got heated, we were playing for the little bit of money we had left, I had three dollars to my name and the pot was up to 30. I could have done so much with that money. I played so well. I chipped away at the pot little by little, betting just enough from the last game’s winning to keep me in the game until we were on our last hand. I went all in and won. 

“They thought I cheated or maybe they were just sore losers but they waited until I went to bed that night. They dragged me out of bed and outside so the administrators wouldn’t hear and they beat me until I could barely breathe. They took their money back and just left me out there, covered in my own blood and dirt until the adults found me in the morning. I told them I must have been sleepwalking and they somehow believed me even though I had never done it before. They sent me inside to get cleaned up and didn’t even bother investigating. It didn’t stop after that until I was sent to rehab.”

“You never have to go back there. You made it out. They can never treat you like that again.”

“They can do whatever they please if they find me again. I won’t be able to stop them.”

“I won’t let them. Besides, Nathan used to play football, he’s a pretty scary dude when you piss him off. They’ll run away with their tails tucked between their legs with one mean glare from him. If they ever find you, somehow, we won’t let anything happen.”

He smiled up at me and I smiled back.

“I fucking missed you.”

“I missed you too.”

“This is nice. We should do it more often.”

“That’s along the same lines that Roland used when we first did it. Nice right?”

“Very nice. Don’t let go.”

“Not until you tell me.”

Roland’s POV

The cafeteria was as awful as always and I wanted nothing more than to go eat in the silence of my cabin but Andrew had asked me to try. I had told him about what had made me upset the day I made him call Kit for me, about how the cabin felt too small and quiet and he said that spending more time out of it could help; more than just an hour a day. I had had the idea but one look from him told me I had to at least try it.

I sat at a table by myself in the corner, hidden behind last year’s textbook just to avoid everyone staring at me. It didn’t seem to be helping. 

It was loud, the heartbreaking silence of graduation day had long passed and I never thought that I would miss that kind of silence but I did. People yelled and screamed over each other, which almost drowned out the buzzing of the industrial lights. Spoons clanked against treys and cups were slammed onto the tables. The sound alone was reason enough to make me want to die then and there but the smell was almost worse.

It smelled like food and sweat and freshly cut grass and all of that together made me want to throw up. The food on my trey looked less and less appetizing as time went on. I played with it more than I actually ate. 

This was a terrible idea and I would never listen to Andrew’s advice again.

I could deal with the pointed laughter at me, I could deal with the snarky comments that were made a bit too loud. I could deal with the the way people looked at me like I was an alien. But the noise and the smell was just too much.

It made me wish for Kit. Kit would be here to whisper about something stupid just to help drown out the sounds around us. Kit’s body wash would over power the other smells. Kit would have made it bearable.

I wanted to feel his hand in mine. I wanted to feel the heat of his body beside me and his breath tickled my ear as he talked about nothing that mattered. I wanted my boyfriend.

My hands flapped under the table and the pointing got worse and the laughter grew louder. I wanted my boyfriend.

I wanted to tell him not to bother when he glared at everyone who sent me a sideways glance. I wanted to hold him back from confronting everyone who laughed. I wanted this year to be over already.

When I couldn’t take it anymore I got up. Barely any food had been eaten from my trey and I tried not to feel bad about it as I left it on the table, every bit of spare food left in a pile in the center. 

I grabbed the book that had been propped up in front of me and held it to my chest as I began walking to the door. I gave a wide berth to as many tables as I could but the closer I got to the door the harder it was. 

I was almost out the door when I felt something brush against my head. I turned just in time to see a dirty wadded-up napkin hit the floor.

“Sorry,” a boy from the table I was passing said with a small shrug. He didn’t look very sorry. “Slipped.” He had a wide smirk on his face and his friends cackled at the response.

I looked back down at the napkin. It was disgusting. Covered in ketchup, grease, and probably sweat. My stomach churned. It touched me. It had touched my face.

I was going to throw up.

I ran from the room, trying to block out the sounds of laughter as I tried to hold in my bile.

The second I got to the cabin I slammed into the bathroom and emptied my stomach into the toilet. I retched until nothing but acid came up and the second I was able to, I peeled off my clothes and stumbled into the shower.

The water had been scolded, far hotter than anything I would have normally preferred but it had touched me.

I was going to be sick again but I tried to hold it in just to get his germs off of me.

I scrubbed my body until I felt raw, focusing on the part of my face that had been hit. I’m sure it was red and if I had been able to manage it, it would be bleeding. I wanted that skin gone. The skin that had been dirtied by someone else’s germs. It needed to be gone.

I stayed under the spray of water until it turned too cold for me to stand and I knew it wouldn’t be helpful to stay any longer.

I looked down at the clothes I had discarded and decided they would need to be burned. Germs traveled fast. In the time it took me to get them off that asshole’s germs would have covered them.

I eased out of the bathroom, doing my best to make sure no part of me touched them.

I hadn’t thought when I picked up some of Kit’s clothes that he had left behind and pulled them on. They barely smelled like him now but it was enough and they were soft.

It was only lunch and I hadn’t spent my hour outside yet but I crawled into the bed and pulled the covers over my head.

I hated this place. The cars didn’t matter. I hated this place and if jail or foster homes wouldn’t be on the table I would gladly leave again and just pray no one would find me again.

At some point, the tears came but I didn’t bother wiping them away as I balled up and wished for these past few days to just be a dream. I wished that if I managed to sleep I would wake up and Kit would be beside me, an arm wrapped around my back as he pulled me into his chest. That he would smile down at me and tease me for sleeping in the middle of the day.

I sobbed into the blankets. I wanted that more than anything in this world.