{Cary}

The street lamps blinked on one by one as he biked up the street to the Whites'—it was later than he'd thought. Cary rode up over the back lawn and swung off Jon's bike, checking the windows of the house. All the bedroom lights were out, but the light above the back door was burning steadily. He opened it, catching the screen with his hand so it wouldn't bang shut behind him.

The kitchen was dark, but it wasn't empty: Jon's dad was a bowed shape at the table, facing the hall. Cary held his breath, waiting for Pete to turn around and say something. When Pete didn't turn, he thought he must have fallen asleep, so he pulled off his shoes to go past in sock feet.

Pete's fist was closed on the table, and his forehead was resting on it. His other hand was open and out like he was asking for change on a street corner. Cary paused beside the table, looking at Pete's open hand. He turned his own palm over and laid it next to Pete's. Pete's hand was bigger, calloused and strong. Cary curled his fingers in just the shape Pete's were making, holding his breath so he wouldn't make a sound. In the dim light, you couldn't see his scars—just the shape of his hand, open there.

He folded his fingers again and went to brush his teeth for bed.

When he came out of the bathroom, Pete was standing in the hall like he'd been waiting. Cary got out of the way so Pete could go in.

"Cary." Pete's voice stopped him on the way to his room. "Are you all right?"

Cary turned, checking Pete's face. It occurred to him for the first time that Pete might have been waiting for him. All the times he'd run away, his father had never been waiting up when he came home—Conall had rarely even noticed he was gone. He couldn't guess what Pete wanted him to say. If he wasn't all right, was he in less trouble? If he was all right, would Pete feel better and go to bed?

"I didn't think it was so late—sorry, Mr. White." The words came out flat, bouncing against the walls in the hall.

"I was afraid you weren't coming back." Pete's face still looked crumpled around the edges like he'd been crying or had just woken up. Cary was having trouble matching this face to the one he saw in the daytime—the face of a grown-up man, powerful and competent like his father. "Where did you go?"

"The ravine. I should have ... I'm sorry I didn't tell you where I was going. I just ..." The things Jon had said to him just before he'd torn out of the house made his nose sting. He smoothed a hand over his aching stomach, hiding his face. "I just wanted a bike ride."

"Show me your arms," Pete said softly.

Cary held still a moment, the skin on his chest prickling around the cuts. He stepped forward and held his fists out, then turned his arms over and opened his hands so Pete could see there was nothing there. Nothing new, anyway. He took a breath to say the thing Pete needed to hear. "I'm okay, Mr. White." It was almost true. At least his skin was staying in one piece for the night. "I didn't think you would be waiting up—I'm sorry."

Pete let out his breath and drew himself up, smiling at Cary. "Thank you for apologizing. I trust you'll remember you have a parent worrying at home the next time you have an urge to head out alone."

Cary met Pete's eyes, and something froze inside him. In the light of the hallway, it was plain that something was not okay with Pete. When his mom looked like this, he knew not to ask, not to check her arms for bruises, and not to wonder why she winced and got him to reach to the top shelf in the cupboard instead. He didn't think taking off like he had explained why Pete looked like he was breaking under that smile.

Cary looked away, ducking his head in a nod. "I will." He went into his room and closed his door, then stood there, seeing that look on Pete's face. He couldn't cross the hall and knock on Jon's door to ask him what the hell was going on. "Shit," he said softly.

{Jon}

Jon was still awake when Cary came home, staring up into the darkness with his ribs sawing through his chest on every breath, no matter how he shifted. He heard his dad speak to Cary in the hallway, and he heard Cary say nothing—nothing about the things Jon had said, nothing about why he tore off on a late-night bike ride without telling anyone. His throat was tight and his eyes were hot and dry.

He felt like the darkness was a hand pressing on his chest, leaving barely any room to breathe. There wasn't anything about the past day he wanted to remember, but his thoughts went over and over it—the sound Cary had made when Jon had hit him and how he'd come up with his head ducked between his fists in case Jon hit him some more. Then way Cary's face had looked when Jon had said what he'd said—just before Cary had kicked Jon out of his room and disappeared.

His dad's holler still rang in his ears, and shame rose up in a hot, prickly wave. Everything he knew about being a Christian joined his dad's holler—if he couldn't love others, he couldn't claim to love God. He was not a good person. He was just a hell of a faker. And today, he couldn't even get that right.

He shut his eyes and shifted his shoulders. Pain made his breath catch. He kneaded his free hand in his blanket, trying to breathe like Cary had showed him. This day was the best he could do—when the words he said could have made Cary put a blade against his skin and bleed out the bitterness of Jon's blunt assessment of their friendship. For all he knew, Cary had done that in secret where his dad didn't know to check.

He did know better. It was his job to pay the price of kindness, to love even when it hurt and lie when he couldn't manage that. He should have lied. He should have said they were fine, he was fine. He should have swallowed the horror he felt over the life that was lost and the blood that was on Cary's hands. Jon shivered, swallowing back a sick taste in his mouth. He couldn't imagine having a friend who had a stain like that in their past—and now Cary was here in his house, and he had defended him over and over. It was a knot as broken and painful as his ribs.

It was too much. He pushed himself up in bed and reached for his pills. He vaguely remembered the nurses showing him which ones to take for "breakout" pain, when the normal dose wasn't working. He'd taken one earlier today—surely enough time had passed that he could take another.

A sound crept into his awareness in the middle of the night, drawing him from a miserable half-doze to complete wakefulness. Jon spread his hand on his blanket, listening, then got up with a little grunt. Cary was having a nightmare—crying out so softly that Jon wouldn't have heard it if he had been sleeping.

He swayed across the darkened hall and pushed Cary's door open, his ribs beating like a bass drum. There was no window and no light from the street in Cary's room. He blinked in the complete black. Cary's voice made a continuous thread of sound, thin and ragged: sorry-sorry-sorry. Jon couldn't tell when he took a breath.

"Cary," Jon said loud and firm. "Wake up."

There was no break in Cary's sorry-sorry-sorry, and Jon took a breath to steady himself. It frightened him to imagine what Cary was seeing and wonder if it had happened for real. He stepped into the room, feeling for the edge of the bed. "Cary." He reached his hand where he thought Cary's shoulder would be.

His fingers brushed Cary's head, his hair damp and tangled, and suddenly something knocked him down so hard that the room went white and his ears filled with ringing. Cary was on him, his hand pressing against Jon's throat while his other hand touched Jon's face, reading him in the dark.

The weight of Cary's knee lifted off his chest abruptly.

"I said stay the fuck out of my room." Cary sounded like he was out of breath.

Jon rolled onto his side, tears sliding hot out of his eyes. He couldn't get up any further than that.

Arms went around him and dragged him to his feet, faced him toward the door and gave him a little shove. Jon couldn't make his legs take his weight, and he caught himself against the doorframe. If he could have propelled himself the rest of the way across the hall, he would have. His head was spinning, and his rib was hurting so badly he thought he might throw up.

He heard Cary take a shaky breath. "Jesus." It was low, like Jon wasn't supposed to hear. He snapped on the lamp.

Jon flinched, putting his face against the smooth, cool wood. He was sweating, trying to hold in the whimper that was pressing behind his lips.

Cary ducked under Jon's good arm, drawing it across his shoulders and putting his arm around Jon's back as they shuffled across the hall. "You shouldn't be up."

Jon had his eyes squeezed shut, blindly following. "Couldn't sleep. Heard your nightmare."

His legs bumped against his own bed.

"Not your problem," Cary said. He lowered him onto his bed with a grunt. "Never was." He tugged the pillows into place under Jon's broken side.

Being horizontal again made the world stop spinning—the pillows were wonderfully cool against his skin. "Thanks." He opened his eyes and found Cary. His frown—and something else—were plain in the dim light.

"Lamp," Jon said in a tight voice.

Cary turned it on and backed away from the bed. He was wearing the pyjama pants Jon's mom had bought him, and in the light, Jon could see that the place where Cary's ribs had been broken was swollen again and dotted with red under his skin.

Above that, a pair of cuts crossed his chest, blackly scabbed and fresh. Jon lifted his eyes to Cary's face, anger grabbing his insides and twisting until he didn't know where his hurt was coming from anymore. "You said you wouldn't." His breath caught like there was a hook through his side, and his voice came out squeezed and harsh. "Were you ever going to stop lying to me?"

Cary could only touch Jon's eyes for a second, crossing his arms against himself and covering the cuts with his hand. "Probably not. Guess we won't know." He bent his head, and Jon saw his body tense like he thought Jon could get up and hit him again. "I'm sorry."

Jon heard Cary saying sorry-sorry-sorry like it was being unravelled out of him and felt a shame so hot he could hardly live with himself. "Keep your fucking sorries." He couldn't keep his voice from breaking. "I don't want them. And just ... work out your shit, okay? Before anyone else gets hurt. And I'll leave you alone, like you wanted in the first place."

{Cary}

Jon's face was white and his lips pressed against his teeth in the opposite of a smile. Cary took himself out of Jon's room without saying another word—there wasn't anything he knew how to say. He never knew what to say to his father either. Sorry wasn't enough for them, and it was all he had.

He shut the door to his room and stood still in the dark. There had been something loud inside him when Jon had said he would leave him alone. He put his hands against his body as if he could find where the hurt was, then put the backs of his hands to his eyes. They were crying, and he blinked tears loose, sucking in a shuddery breath.

He found his bed in the dark and went to his knees beside it, gathering the blankets to hold onto something warm. He tried to recall the feeling of being alive—the electric jump of his heart in Jesus' hand, the way his chest expanded and there was room for him in the world. Like someone wanted him there—someone good like Jesus.

He couldn't.

Instead, the thing that came back to him was the way his knees hadn't reached the floor the first time his father had pressed his face into the bed and bent his belt over his back. He'd just relived that nightmare—it was so fresh his skin still jumped and shivered. A thread of panic snaked around him, making it hard to breathe. He stretched his hands out like he could push those memories away, trying to pray when his voice just sounded like crying.

Then another memory layered over that one, soft as a blanket—another time kneeling beside his bed, with the smell of clean sheets and a woman kneeling next to him, speaking gently.

Now I lay me down to sleep

I pray the Lord my soul to keep

He had turned his face against the blankets and peeked at her while she prayed. The flame of her red hair was visible even in the dim light of his bedroom.

Guard me Jesus through the night

Wake me with the morning light.

Amen.

Cary got a breath in and another, holding that picture in the darkness of his mind. Who was that, teaching him to pray? It felt as real as the memory of his father bending him over the bed. Not his mother—not with hair that vivid shade of red.

His chest slowly relaxed while he thought about her. He curled his back and dug the tension out of his neck with his thumbs. Another memory unfolded, maybe just the next moment in time, because he was still in his pyjamas with his face buried in his pillow, and that woman's fingers traced waves and swirls on the bare skin of his back. He had giggled, trying to hold still. Her touch had felt so good, and so ticklish at the same time.

All the hairs on Cary's back lifted like a little breeze blowing over his skin. He made a small wondering noise—there must have been no scars then. A long time ago. He crawled into bed, curling into a ball and drawing the covers up to his ears. Maybe it wasn't a real memory—just a thought Jesus gave him to help make it through a bad night.

He fingered the words of the prayer in his mind. If it wasn't a real memory, where did it come from? He nudged the words toward where he imagined Jesus was listening, and with a sigh, he fell asleep.