Page 108 of Redline Baby

He lowers himself onto the carpet without looking at Charles or John. I take the low chair beside him and watch him sit rigidly for a moment. The rigidity is honest. I’ll take honest over performed ease any day of the week.

Kit reaches for the crayon tin. He shakes it once before prying the lid back and pulling out a burnt orange. He flips the coloring book open to a page of oversized geometric shapes, triangles and hexagons nested inside each other.

“That one’s good.”

John’s voice comes across the carpet, and he genuinely means what he says. There is no other angle on it.

He nods toward Kit’s page.

“I did the one before it. Took me forever.”

Kit glances at him.

John looks like a little angel. He’s small, even smaller than Kit, with blond hair and blue eyes. He’s looking at Kit with a friendly openness.

And Kit doesn’t put on his mask. He just stares at him.

“Yours is better than mine’s going to be,” he says.

John grins. “You haven’t started yet.”

“I know my limitations.”

I settle back in my chair and don’t interfere. When Kit finishes with the orange and reaches for another color, John slides the purple crayon across the carpet toward him before he’s asked. Kit takes it without comment.

By the time the crayon tin has migrated halfway across the carpet between them—red here, green there, yellow and dark blue lost somewhere in the pile of John’s scattered supplies—Kit looks relaxed and completely focused on his task. He is not performing anything. He is not scanning the room.

He is simply here, on a patchwork carpet under a warm amber lamp.

I watch him from my chair, my ankle crossed over my knee, and I don’t say a word about any of it.

John waves when he goes. Both hands, a cheerful double gesture, and then he’s on his feet. Charles gets up too. Charles looks at Kit. Kit looks at him. I’m afraid of what will happen. But nothing does. Kit doesn’t break down. He doesn’t put on his performance self. He’s just Kit.

“Kit,” Charles says. His voice is warm. He smiles. “You look good. I mean that.”

“Yeah,” Kit says, and he smiles too. “I think I am.”

“I’m glad,” Charles says, and he means it.

“Me too,” Kit says. And then they’re gone.

My heart is thundering in my chest. He’s all right.

My Christopher.

He is all right.

The shift in the space is immediate, the corner feels weighted differently with just the two of us in it. I don’t move from my chair. I cross my ankle over my knee again and let Kit have space to explore this side of himself.

He’s still on the carpet. The coloring books are open on the low table, John’s pages and Kit’s pages side by side. Crayons are scattered everywhere.

He doesn’t look at me when he speaks. His voice is quiet.

“It’s good,” he says. “Being in here.”

I smile, pride expanding in my chest.

“I figured this part of me was just…” He stops. “Done. Gone. After everything with Charles. It was like that version of me was attached to that, and when that ended, it ended too. And I thought that was fine. I thought I’d just written it off, like a bike I’d stripped for parts. Nothing left worth salvaging.”