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“Oh baby, I’m so sorry.” Garrett tugged Maxwell into his chest, then let go of his hands and wrapped his arms around him. “I’m so sorry that happened.”
Maxwell turned into him, buried his nose in the hollow of Garrett’s throat, and inhaled the familiar scent. “He was still twitching when my mother made us run.”
A full-body shiver trembled down Garrett’s spine and shook Maxwell with it. “She kept you alive.”
“And alone.” Maxwell wrapped his fingers in the loose fabric of Garrett’s shirt. “Torvars are always supposed to be alone. That’s what she taught me, and after what happened to my father and then what happened with Kurt…”
“You have every reason to believe it,” Garrett finished for him. He lay his cheek on the top of Maxwell’s head. “I understand, Maxwell.”
And Maxwell knew he did because Garrett always understood. And he always accepted it even when it hurt him. “I’m sorry, Garrett.”
Garrett chuckled and stepped back enough to cup Maxwell’s face in his hands and look down at him. “Let’s banish that word from the rest of this conversation, okay?”
“Alright.” Despite the heaviness in his heart, Maxwell laughed with him. As he did, Garrett tilted his head with a bemused little smile, and his eyes roamed across Maxwell’s face. Maxwell’s mirth dissolved under the scrutiny, and he narrowed his eyes. “What?”
“It’s just”—Garrett’s bemused smile grew—“I could never even make you blush before, and now your skin cycles through the whole color wheel.”
Maxwell cringed and turned his nose into Garrett’s palm to hide half his face. “Ugh. I have no idea how to control it.”
“Don’t.” Garrett pushed the palm Maxwell was trying to hide his face in up into Maxwell’s hair instead. “I like it.”
Maxwell snorted. “Of course you do.”
“Will you tell me what they mean?” Garrett traced his thumb in a strange pattern over Maxwell’s cheek, and Maxwell realized he must be following a trail of color over his skin.
Maxwell stiffened at the request. Tell Garrett what they meant? He might as well hand over the guidebook to his mind. Out with privacy and safety and in with transparency and vulnerability.
And just like that, because Maxwell couldn’t hide his stupid feelings anymore, Garrett dropped his hands from Maxwell’s face and held them up in surrender and apology instead. “I shouldn’t have asked that.” He backed up and shook his head, then grabbed the broom again. “I’m sorry.”
Maxwell watched Garrett fiddle with the broom and then start sweeping an already clean patch of floor. He couldn’t see it, but he could practically feel orange frustration sweeping across his forehead. “I thought we were banishing that word from this conversation.”
“You’re right. I take back the sorry.” Garrett dug the broom bristles into the crevice where the wall met the floor. “But I still know I shouldn’t have asked about the colors. I know we’re not—that I’m not—” Garrett made a frustrated noise, then knelt to pick at a piece of medical tape that had glued itself to the ground. “I know it’s none of my business.”
Maxwell watched Garrett painstakingly peel the sticky tape off the rusted concrete floor. He knew Garrett’s frustration had nothing to do with his foiled cleaning. Garrett had been trying with the same painstaking patience to peel back Maxwell’s layers for years, and he had always been met with uncompromising rebuffs.
And it hurt him.
If Garrett were someone else, then that would be Garrett’s problem—Maxwell wasn’t obliged to let people in just because they wanted in. But Garrett wasn’t someone else, and keeping him out hurt Maxwell too. And knowing that Garrett was hurting just hurt Maxwell more.
Maxwell clenched his fists and looked down at the orange and blue streaking across his knuckles. They both just hurt, and Maxwell was the one doing it to them. Hadn’t he just been strapped to a chair berating himself for not being honest with Garrett when he’d had the chance? All because he’d been a coward? Well, now he had his chance.
“The black means I’m afraid.”
Garrett froze—his back to Maxwell and his thumb and forefinger still pinching the corner of the tape.
Maxwell swallowed and looked down at his hands, which even now were starting to wreathe with inky blackness. “It was the first color I figured out. I hate it because it’s so unsettling that every time I see it, I just get more afraid.”
Garrett turned slowly and flicked his eyes between Maxwell’s face and hands. “You’re turning black now.”
“I am.” Maxwell let out a shaky breath. “Because telling you all this is scary.”
“You don’t have to,” Garrett said quickly, still not getting up off the floor but shuffling around to face him more fully. “Really, Maxwell.”
“I want to.” Maxwell watched a light blue start to overtake the blackness, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to name that feeling yet. Almost in response, an orange splotch appeared over his palm, and he held it out to show Garrett. “Orange is frustration. Because this is so difficult.”
“What’s the green?” Garrett tilted his head as he looked up at Maxwell as though he were the most fascinating thing in the world, and Maxwell’s breath stuttered in his chest. God, he loved when Garrett looked at him like that.
Maxwell licked his lips and forced his eyes back to his hands to try to find the green Garrett was referring to, but it wasn’t on his hands. “Anger, I think. Comes after orange. Black because I get scared of everything, then orange because I’m frustrated that I’m scared, and then green because I’m mad to find myself stuck in the repetitive cycle.”
