Page 31 of Loverboy

“Okay. Okay.” He swallowed thickly, steeling himself, his fingers skimming mine as he seized the knife by the handle.

I held my breath and watched him, his movements clumsy and uncertain. We shared a long look. He pursed his lips and held the blade to his hand, flinching in pain as he cut.

I blinked.

“Are you kidding me?” I sighed, grabbing his hand with my clean one and leaning in. “That’s nothing! How are you gonna fill up a vial with this?”

“Shut up, dude, I’ve never done this before,” he snapped, looking nervous.

“Just let me do it, idiot,” I insisted, releasing him and holding my hand out.

To my surprise, he passed the knife right back to me without arguing. Holy shit. He was really going to let me do it. He trusted me enough to hand me a weapon and ask me to use it on him. A thrill ran through me when I gripped his wrist to hold him still, his skin turning slick with my blood.

“I’ve got you, bro. Relax,” I promised.

I waited for several beats to see if he would change his mind, trying to read his expression. He seemed focused, brows drawn together, and eyes glued to our hands. When he didn’t pull away, I cut him quick. He hissed, jerking his hand back.

“That’s how it’s done,” I told him with pride. “Now, hurry up—let’s seal the deal.”

We pressed our bloody palms together and squeezed. I grinned, buzzing with excitement. Then we fumbled with the vials, trying to find the best way to get the blood into the small openings. A funnel of some sort probably would have helped, but we hadn’t thought that far ahead. With a lot of cursing, blood streaking down our elbows, we finally figured it out. We sat in silence, squeezing our fists and letting the blood drip into the glass.

“Real brothers?” Jasper asked quietly.

“Real brothers,” I said back.

“Did you forget you had an appointment?” Jasper’s voice pulled me out of the memory, the warmth that had begun to spread throughout my chest curling back in on itself. I was still in this stupid fucking apartment, of course.

“Huh?” I blinked, taking a moment to process what he’d said.

“There’s some mental health person here,” he whispered, meaning they were already in the apartment.

Right. The follow-up.

While I was in the hospital, I had agreed to a follow-up to be released. If I hadn’t, the psych hold would have been longer. I’d completely forgotten about it in the days since getting out, and now I had no time to prepare mentally.

“Oh. Yeah, I forgot about that.” I peeled myself out of bed and sluggishly made my way out to the living room.

On the couch was a young woman who had taken the liberty of opening up her briefcase on the coffee table and spreading out papers. Papers that would be in the trash as soon as we were done here.

“Hello, Milo. I’m Angela,” she greeted, gesturing to the spot next to her on the couch.

I looked back at Jasper, who was leaning against the wall with his arms folded and watching the woman with a straight face. He caught me looking and cocked his head towards her.

I’m fucking going.

I plopped down on the couch next to Angela, immediately scanning the array of papers on the table. Phone numbers, so many phone numbers—suicide prevention, therapists, group counselling recommendations—the works. Some of them were even mental health workbooks, and I sure as fuck wasn’t going to be filling those out.

“Hey.” My body was rigid, the atmosphere unbearably awkward.

“How have you been doing the last couple of days?” she asked, her hands interlaced in her lap.

I hated mental health professionals with a burning passion. They wanted to pick apart all of my abandonment issues, label me with things like borderline personality disorder, and stuff me full of pills that would make me boring. I didn’t want to be boring. Who voluntarily took things that had side effects like depression and potentially lower sex drive?

“Good. My brother moved in with me,” I answered, gesturing to Jasper, a cry for help that went unanswered. This was all on me.

The information made the woman smile, a smile that reached her eyes. She must have figured that meant this would be easy work. I was on an upward trajectory, with a support system and all that jazz. Hooray.

“I’m so glad to hear you have family around to support you. That’s amazing,” she remarked, sifting through the papers sprawled across the table. “We have some mandatory questions to go through to make sure you’re doing okay and have access to help if you need it.”