A More Deserving Blackness by Angela Wolbert Read Free Book Online Page B

overtop mine, his warm skin entirely enveloping it.  “Better?”
                  The softness of his voice shocks me after the thinly veiled malice I’d heard in it back at the party, but I nod.  The sound is familiar to me.  Comforting. 
                  For a second he’s just there, crouched in front of me in those same boots he always wears, him in a t-shirt of indistinct color and me wrapped in the coat still warm from his body.  Then he shifts with the snap of a branch beneath him, sitting with his back against the tree, knees bent and boots planted in the dirt, right there in some stranger’s front yard.  Like he has absolutely no desire to be anywhere else. 
                  He still hasn’t let go of my hand and he catches me looking down at it.
                  “I’ll let go if it bothers you but you seemed to want . . .”
                  He stops because I’m shaking my head, a little too forcefully, my fingers gripping his for good measure.
                  “Okay.”             
                  After a moment I rearrange myself as well, tucking my feet to the side, getting somewhat comfortable without leaning up next to him – worried that might be too close – all without loosening my grip on his hand.  With my other I pull the sides of his coat together, grateful for the warmth.  I’m stiff and achy, but afraid to move too much or he’ll think I want him to leave and then I’ll be back to gasping for breath, trying not to hear the screams that rip me to pieces.
                  When his lips twitch with a smile I tilt my head in question.  What?
                  “They’re going to find us here, years later.  Two mummified bodies by the edge of the road, still holding hands.”
                  I don’t smile with him, glancing down at our hands, suddenly excruciatingly self-conscious.
                  “Stop it,” he says without force, and his thumb sweeps gently over the back of my hand.  “It’s fine.”
                  When he gets tired of holding them up he lets our hands rest on his knee, which is oddly both intimate and comforting at the same time.  He has to know I’m still studying him, matching my breathing with his.  He has to hear it, has to see it as closely as he’s watching me, like he’s searching for clues, but he doesn’t comment.
                  Silence drops over us, not heavy or awkward, just calm.  Silence that he settles into like it’s an overstuffed sofa, not made uncomfortable by it at all, until he notices me glancing around, biting my lip.
                  “Did you . . . did you come here with Dylan?”
                  I shake my head.  No.
                  “Who, then?” 
                  He waits a beat and than grimaces slightly at my blank look, actually seeming ashamed that he’d forgotten, instead of pissed and irritated that I wouldn’t talk, even to tell him such a simple thing.  As if even one word clawing up my bruised throat, exploding out of me like a blood clot shaken loose with all the gore spewing forth behind it, would somehow be better.  Easier, like everyone thought.
                  “Sorry.  Nevermind.”
                  I shake my head again, amazed.
                  “Do you have a ride home?”
                  I can feel the grip of panic start in again but I hide it with another shake of my head.  I did, technically.  I think.  But I’d have to go back in there, somehow find Erik, coax him away from the on-again-off-again love of his life, beg him silently to take me home.  My chest feels like an avalanche, just before that first brittle block of ice breaks free.
                  He stares at me, his expression never changing.  “I’m