*Here's what you need to know lovelies. We're going down in the dark with Cary and then we're coming back up into the light. Get Kleenexes and your cat and snuggle and read on...*

{Cary}

The shelter had an eight AM wake up call, one of its least popular features. Cary dragged himself down to breakfast and nursed a cup of coffee, feeling like shit. Leonard joined him with his bowl of porridge and bright quarters of orange.

"Morning," he said cheerfully.

The fierce girl with the laugh was with him. Cary shot her a frown. She looked different with no eyeliner and her dyed and fried hair pulled back in an elastic. She huddled in her baggy sweater like it was what passed for a hug in her world.

"Cary, this is Karmin." Leonard said.

Cary nodded and didn't bother looking at either of them again. She was giggling at Leonard before breakfast was over. Cary endured it in silence because he didn't want to move. He was thinking about sneaking back into the boys' dorm to crash.

He spent the morning buried in an armchair in the shelter lounge with his drawing book and pencils. He lost track of time. Leonard came for him with a fresh dose of Tylenol exactly four hours since the pills he'd had at breakfast. Cary didn't have the heart to tell him they barely took the edge off.

"It's lunch," Leonard said. He sat on the arm of the chair next to Cary, leaning over his shoulder. "Hey, did you draw that?"

"Yeah." Cary flipped the book closed on the picture of his mother and Liam curled together on the bed. He had finished it.

"You're really good. I bet people would pay you to draw for them."

"Huh." The last thing Cary wanted to do was spend time with people doing their drawings.

He was starving. They were the first two in the line for lunch. The rest of the kids trickled in from the bus stop, or the smoke pit, or the ravine out back. Karmin came to sit next to Leonard again. Her lipstick looked like the slash of a wound on her face.

"Hey Leonard." She ignored Cary. Her eyes darted around the room at the other kids in line.

The guys she'd been with the day before set their trays down at the table around them. Cary held still in his jacket, keeping his stone face blank and hard like he would give as good as he got if it came to that.

Leonard chatted and joked but the guys' laughter felt more like they were laughing at him than with him. Karmin snugged her chair so close to Cary that her arm touched him. Cary ate quickly, got up and left.

///

He was in the smoke pit when Karmin came out the doors, flicking her hair back, her mouth sneering. "Oh my god what an asshole." She stopped next to him with her hip cocked. "Not you. Can I have a drag?"

He looked at her from under his eyebrows. She rolled her eyes. "I'm sorry, but if I don't get a cigarette I'm going to tear someone's face off, know what I mean?"

He passed her the smoke he'd half finished. "Keep that." He didn't want it back with the red crap from her lips on it. He lit another one.

"Thanks. Nice to finally meet someone decent in this shithole. For a while there I thought Down Low was the last nice guy in the world."

Cary frowned at her. Whatever she was angling to get from him, he didn't have anything except that smoke.

"Not much of a talker, are you?" she remarked, after five minutes of smoking in silence.

"No," Cary said.

She flicked the cigarette onto the concrete and straightened her shoulders. The tank top was back. "We're hanging out in the ravine just back there if you want to come chill," she said, sticking her thumb at the tangle of bushes and trees growing across from the parking lot.

Cary shrugged. He was pretty sure there was no one there he wanted to "chill" with, and the way she tucked her hand into the waistband of her jean shorts and stroked her thumb over the strip of pale skin above her hip made him uncomfortable.

"Come find us if you change your mind." She went back inside, waggling her hips.

Cary shifted and turned away. Girls. It was a mystery how they went from sweet and innocent as Jon's sisters to shit-full of secrets as his mother. The pouty in-between stage confused the hell out of him.

When he went inside, he discovered the dorms were open for the afternoon, supposedly so the residents could clean their rooms. Cary rolled into bed with his jacket still on and crashed to sleep.

///

He would have slept through dinner if Leonard hadn't gotten him up, patting his shoulder with his freckled hand. "Suppertime, Cary," he said in his light voice.

Cary pulled the blankets over his head. Leonard had been gone for a couple minutes before he was ready to sit up and face the dorm room. He looked at the metal bunks with their identical grey plastic mattresses and the tiny window with flaking trim. He felt as bleak as the room. He could already predict what would happen tomorrow and the next and the next after that. It led to nowhere at thirty days, a dead end.

His family would close around the place where they had cut him out, and there wouldn't even be a mark. Maybe they would laugh more and go on vacations together. Liam would get big and be their son. Cary made a sound, like something wrenched loose. He pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes.

He wanted them to be happy. But that left him here, alone with nothing except the basement and his scars. His body could mend and keep going, but there was something inside him that couldn't. That couldn't mend.

He dragged his sleeve across his nose and pulled his backpack toward him. He dug deep and pulled out his drawing book, his pencils, and his wallet of razors. Something was taking shape in his mind. He wanted to say sorry—that meant blood. Then he wanted to be done.

His heart missed a beat, then sped up. God, if he could be light. If he could cut free from this broken body and all the shit he'd done and had done to him. The basement was heavy; he'd been carrying it so long it had crushed him until he almost didn't recognize himself. He didn't give a shit about anything anymore—just Liam and Jon. He dug the heel of his hand into his chest. They weren't enough.

Cary let out his breath slowly. He had one chance to do this right. He opened his drawing book and carefully tore out the picture of Liam and his mother. He folded it once and wrote, "For Liam Douglas." He tore out the picture of the house he and Jon had built together, folded it, and wrote, "For Jon White" and Jon's phone number and address. He left the drawings on his pillow.

He took out his phone and opened a new text to Jon. He shut his eyes and took a breath. He imagined Jon was sitting on the bed across from him with his open face and easy smile. He put all the things into his fingers that he could never make his mouth say out loud.

<Jon I wanted to say thanks. You're like a light in a dark place. I never had someone try to push the dark back for me. you cried for me when nobody noticed. this is not your fault the dark in me is just too big. I'm sorry.>

He had to stop because his hands were shaking. He put them into his armpits to warm them up. He realized his whole body was shivering. There was so much to say and now he was out of time. He picked up his phone again and punched in the rest.

<tell my brother about me when he's old enough. just tell him i loved him. cary.>

He sent it, and when it was gone he turned off his phone and left it on the pillow with the drawings.

Everyone was at supper. No one saw Cary leave through the back doors and head for the ravine. He went in the opposite direction he'd seen the other kids coming and going; he didn't want to meet anyone.

Once he fought his way through the bushes, the way was open. Evergreens stretched tall and gloomy, carpeting the ground with their soft needles. There was a small creek running over stones, chatting quietly. Cary followed it, looking for the right place.

He walked a long time. Sometimes he could hear traffic above him; once, a helicopter thudded in the distant sky overhead. The stream ran out of a culvert in a tall, weedy bank. Traffic rumbled above it, covering the noise of the water falling from the man-sized pipe. Cary doubted anyone in the passing cars even knew there was a stream here. He stepped up the bank, pushing through the weeds and tucking in to a sandy spot next to the culvert. Its metal side was cool and rough. If he stayed down, the weeds hid him from any unlikely passers-by.

Cary put his back against the bank, taking a breath. This would do. His eyes caught on the black shapes of the evergreen branches reaching for the evening sky. It was even kind of beautiful.

He took his drawing book out from under his arm and his pencils out of his pocket. He turned to a clean page. He shut his eyes a second, flipping the stone lid aside and dropping into the basement. There was a room in his mind he kept tightly locked. He opened it.

It was a nursery done in pink and yellow—his baby sister's room. He was just big enough to climb into her crib when she woke up from her nap and make her laugh and laugh. He was drawing her like that—laughing. While he drew, he remembered being there in their hiding place with the crib blankets pulled up over their heads. He was holding her in his arms and they were not afraid. There were no shouts in the other room and she was quiet and content. He drew her closer and put his face against hers.

He whispered: Renae. I should have held you like this.

But he hadn't. He had held her tightly enough to smother her cries while his mother's screams came through the wall. When he opened his arms, she was dead.

The hand holding the pencil dropped to his side, and Cary bowed his head. Maybe if there was some kind of life after death he would see his sister there—before he went to the dark place that was for people like him. He hoped it didn't hurt, that there was just nothing. That he would be erased with everything he had done, and all his scars wiped blank.

He couldn't kick free of the memory of the nursery. He had tucked her blanket against her cheek—maybe she was sleeping and she would wake up. Her body had rolled out of his arms, limp. Nothing he did could make her open her eyes again. Cary took his wallet out of his jacket pocket without looking. He was so sorry he couldn't breathe. He cut the lines across his arm, watching his sister's still, blue face. This time he was going to draw the line that crossed them all, wrist to elbow.

He was gathering his strength to finish it when someone else stepped into the room. Cary balled into the corner, trapped. He could see a pair of hands reaching into the crib. They had scars; he recognized those scars.

Jesus lifted her tiny body, cupping the back of her head with his scarred hand. He kissed her lips and said her name. Renae's eyes opened and when she saw His face, she laughed.

Cary choked and wrapped his hands over his mouth. Jesus was holding his sister, alive in his arms and joy came off of him like light. Cary hid his face, waiting for him to look up and that joy to change to anger like a lightening strike. Blood ran, soft and cool, down his arm.

He heard Jesus ask quietly, "What did you want to say?"

Cary swallowed, risking a look. Was he talking to him?

Jesus touched him with a look and Cary shrank back like he'd been slapped. "Ciaran," Jesus said. He was still smiling but his mouth pressed in at the corner like something hurt him.

"I'm sorry," Cary whispered. He put his head down and his hands up, like his palm-full of blood was enough. "I'm so sorry. I know I can't take it back. But I would. I would trade—if I could pay you—" He strangled those words. There was no way to pay back a life. He was going to hell.

There was a laugh so quiet and near that Cary opened his eyes. Jesus was hunkered down, face-to-face with him in the nursery, waiting for him to look up. "You don't know me very well yet."

They were quiet, looking at each other. Cary's understanding expanded like a drawn breath. His sister was alive. She wasn't dead in her crib or cold in the ground. She was with Jesus now. He couldn't see her, but he knew that was true.

Jesus touched Cary's hands and he shivered while Jesus uncurled his fists, smoothing Cary's fingers open. Cary had cut across every part of his arm that had held her, right down to his fingertips. Jesus made a small, hurt noise.

Cary's other fist was full of razors. Jesus saw them too.

"Can I take those?" Jesus asked.

"What do you want them for?" Cary asked.

"What do you want them for?" Jesus returned.

Cary couldn't look him in the face. He lifted his shoulders, then let them drop. His jacket felt like a hundred pounds. "I can't—carry this anymore."

Jesus held out his hand. The scar on the inside of his wrist was pink and puckered. Cary tipped the razors into Jesus' palm. Jesus touched the sleeve of Cary's jacket. "Can I take this too? Will you give it to me?"

Cary shook his head. "You don't want it."

"Yeah I do." Jesus wore that smile, the one that opened his face so everything underneath shone out. "It's hurting you. I want it."

Cary pulled his jacket off his shoulders and he held it out.

"Thank you," Jesus said softly. He slipped it on.

The hairs on Cary's bare arms stood up. He felt like a rag bag of broken bones and scars wrapped up in black and blue skin. He didn't think he could hold together without that jacket. He wanted his razors back.

Jesus pushed back the jacket sleeve and turned his forearm up. He closed and opened his hand until the tendons showed in his wrist. In a second, he had drawn the cuts across his arm, over and over. He turned the razor and cut his arm open right down the middle, wrist to elbow.

Cary was screaming before the blood started to come out. He collided with Jesus, slapping the razor out of his fingers. Jesus fell back and Cary's hands slipped on his bloody skin. He wrapped his fingers around the cuts, swearing frantically while blood beat out of Jesus' body. The last cut was deep, too deep. He bent, touching his forehead against his red hands.

"Jesus, why did you do that?"

Jesus laughed that soft laugh. "Trade you," he said, and he died.

Cary's breath caught strangely and his eyes were hot. He took one hand then the other off of Jesus' opened arm. The knees of his cargos were soaked black-red and his face was wet. He put the backs of his hands to his eyes; they were crying.

He looked at Jesus' dead body wearing his jacket and a part of him knew he could open his eyes and be crouched by the culvert instead of here. He didn't want to leave Jesus like this, splayed in a pool of blood.

He gritted his teeth and dragged the jacket off Jesus' body. When his arms came free of the sleeves, Cary sucked in his breath. There were bruises on Jesus' arms and there was one on his face. Jesus' shirt was rucked up above his waist. Cary lifted it with freezing hands and saw that his body was shadowed with bruises. He touched Jesus' left side. Jesus' ribs were broken.

"Oh God," he whispered, his tears falling on Jesus' broken body.

When he could see again, Cary smoothed the shirt down and laid Jesus' scarred hands across his chest. He straightened his legs, and when he didn't know what else to do, he covered that still face with his jacket.

Cary drew a breath and opened his eyes on a sunset streaming gold and red above the evergreens. He was still crying. He dragged his jacket sleeve down over his cut-up skin, and pressed his bloody palm against his chest, curling and choking on his tears. He wanted Jon here to ask him, He comes alive again, doesn't he? It felt urgent.

He knew what Jon would say, though. He could see Jon's smile brighten as he said it: Yeah, he does.

Cary caught his breath and wiped his eyes, the salt-water stinging his cuts. He dug a hole in the bank and buried his razor wallet, down deep. The thing that killed Jesus wasn't an option anymore. He hated to even touch it to drop it in the hole. He climbed down the bank and walked back to the shelter.