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judge of that?” It was the blond
    guy, the guy who was not Henries, and he was trying to calm the
    situation down. “Come on… I’m sorry. Jed called you Talker. What’s
    your name again?”
    “Talker,” Tate said, wondering if he could get a glass of water.
    His mouth felt gritty, like he’d been chewing latex.
    “Talker? Really?”
    Lyndie bristled and looked like she was going to go after him
    again, so the blond guy put his hands out and backed down.
    “Okay, Talker. I’m Detective Melville—”
    “Like Moby Dick?” Really? Anything that blew through his
    spasming brain was fair game? Good to know.
    But it seemed to put Melville at ease. “Yeah, you read it?”
    Talker’s Redemption | Amy Lane
    44

    “English thirty-A, Introduction to American Lit, Professor Kay
    Glowes. What was your question?”
    Lyndie looked behind her shoulder at him, her lined face
    contrasting with the wealth of dyed black hair that rippled down her
    back. She smiled wryly, and for a second, just a bare second, Tate
    felt like he could hold it together, and then he realized that it was
    Brian’s smile, and his hands started shaking all over again.
    “Okay, Talker, who took English thirty-A, why were you
    laughing a minute ago? I’ve got to tell you, man, it didn’t sound
    sane.”

    JEREMY spoke in… class today….
    Brian’s shoulders shook, and it looked like he was laughing,
    but he was wiping his eyes with the back of his hands like a little kid.
    “That doesn’t mean you wanted it!” he said, his voice so gruff and
    choked it practically tickled Tate’s toes.
    “I told everybody I wanted it!” Tate snarled back. “I told you!”
    “And you don’t get to change your mind?”
    Tate had never seen Brian angry before, and Brian’s shout
    almost unmade him. “Don’t yell at me!” He cringed, hurt. Brian
    darted his eyes from the door to Talker to the shrink, and he still
    seemed to know that the only thing Talker wouldn’t forgive was if he
    bailed.
    “Well then, don’t laugh about it,” he said after a moment, hiding
    his face in his hands. “You asked to be treated decent, like a person.
    Don’t laugh about it.”
    “C’mon, Brian—you’ve got to admit, it’s a little bit funny.”
    Brian looked at him with swollen, red eyes and tears and snot
    and pain running down his pretty, American-boy-freckled face.
    Talker’s Redemption | Amy Lane
    45

    Suddenly he got self-conscious and used the inside of his plain T-
    shirt to wipe himself off. He held up his hand to Talker’s cheek, the
    damaged one, and wiped with his thumb. His hand came away wet
    and his thumb was smeared with the eyeliner that Tate used on
    both eyes to hide the fact that the lid on his right side was slightly
    misshapen. He’d lost some vision in that eye, but not all. He’d been
    lucky.
    Jeremy spoke in… spoke in….
    “Look at us, baby,” Brian pleaded. “Look at us here. Are we
    even a little bit funny?”
    Class today….

    “IT WAS funny that you thought Trev was my boyfriend,” Talker said,
    thinking that he couldn’t think. They already knew, right? They knew
    it was Trev. They knew Brian had beat him up first. Maybe, if they
    knew Brian had a reason, maybe if they knew that, then Brian
    wouldn’t get into trouble. Maybe if they knew how afraid he was,
    how afraid he was, how afraid he was… oh God… how long could
    he hold it together?
    “He’s not your boyfriend now? Or he never was?”
    Talker started to shake, shake hard. “He never was,” he
    muttered. “Never my boyfriend, never even my friend….”

    “C’MON, you sweet little bitch, c’mon….”
    “Jesus, Trev, use some fucking… ouch! Fucking ouch! Some
    fucking lube, goddammit! Ouch… fuck, Trev, it fucking hurts! Stop
    it!”
    Talker’s Redemption | Amy Lane
    46

    “Just like you want it!”
    “I don’t want it! No! Stop it! Dammit!”
    And the little voice in his head, the one that screamed when
    his heart was jagged, shrieking…