"Sorry I didn't tell you about him sooner," Jamie said. "It's… still pretty new—well, kind of, but… I kind of thought I'd maybe tell you over Christmas break? So in a way I am, just a week or so early. I emailed my professors and got some extra time to work on my papers—there's one exam I'm just going to take once I get back, at the start of next semester—I've had that professor before so she was really chill about it and oh, god, I'm rambling I'm sorry—"

Jamie clapped a hand over his mouth and his grandmother squeezed his other hand. Jamie took a deep, shuddering breath. She smiled at him, but it made his stomach turn—it was crooked and all wrong, and though her eyes were still the same, just as bright, it was as if her body were melting all around her.

He didn't like seeing her like this.

They talked for a little more—or rather, Jamie talked and she listened and nodded, but he could see she was fading quickly.

"Mr. Larsson?" a voice said, and Jamie looked up to see a doctor in the doorway. "Can I speak to you a moment about your grandmother's prognosis?"

"Oh, sure," Jamie said. "Grandma, I'm gonna talk with him for a little bit and then stop by the house and bring you some stuff, okay? We'll be back tomorrow morning."

She nodded unsteadily and he gave her another hug and kissed her on the forehead.

"I'm Dr. Morgan," the man said once they were out in the hallway, shaking Jamie's hand. His hand was large and moist against his. "I wanted to talk a bit more about her care."

"When will she be able to be released?" Jamie said. Dr. Morgan frowned.

"Mr. Larsson—"

"Jamie."

"Jamie, you need to understand that your grandmother suffered a very serious stroke. She's going to need quite a bit of rehabilitation to get her speech and motor functions back, and even then she probably will never be one hundred percent recovered."

Jamie took a deep breath, steadying himself against the handrail mounted on the wall.

"How… how is she going to… get that?" he said.

"There are a couple of options. Now, you don't live here in town, do you?"

"No," Jamie said. "Well, she lives in Welch—I live up in Linfield."

"There are some occupational therapists who make home visits, but you'd need to see if any of them would be willing to go all the way out to Welch. Another member of the household will have to—"

"She lives alone," Jamie said, steeling himself for what he knew was coming next.

Dr. Morgan's frown deepened. Even his bushy mustache seemed concerned.

"Jamie, I'm not going to sugarcoat this," he said. "She certainly can't live by herself anymore. Her best options are either a live-in caretaker, or, ideally some sort assisted care facility. Given certain risk factors she has, I would recommend a care facility where there are trained professionals on call should she have another stroke or any other issues."

"Right." It was all he could say. All of this sounded incredibly expensive. He ran his hand through his hair and blew out a breath.

"Here are some pamphlets," Dr. Morgan said, stuffing a handful of carefully folded leaflets at Jamie, who numbly accepted them. "They have a bit more information about your options."

"Thank you," Jamie said automatically, nodding like a bobble-head toy.

"I'll be around tomorrow if you have any other questions."

Jamie stood there for a moment, looking at the glossy pamphlets without comprehending the words. Dread, cold and dark like tidewater, was creeping into him.

There was only one option, really. He could take some time off school, move back to Welch, and take care of her. If he worked full-time somewhere, he'd be able to afford a nurse to come check on her if needed, and he could learn to do the rest. He could drive her to whatever therapy appointments she had.

He focused on constructing a task list in his head—it was the only way to keep the roaring wall of panic at bay. Email the dean of students, contact the financial aid office, stop in at the hardware store and ask Ed if he could get his old summer job back.

His body seemed to be piloting itself, and he watched from a distant corner of his brain as his hands texted Bennett and his feet took him down to the lobby. Outside, it was a cold, gray day, and the wind was starting to pick up. By now, the light was dying, and—

Oh, fuck, Jamie thought. He needed to go back to his house—well, his grandma's house, really—in Welch to pick up some things for his grandma, to make her hospital room feel a little… less grim. But he couldn't stomach the idea of Bennett seeing the shitty little house he'd grown up in, that he'd once been so proud of.

"Darling, you're shaking."

Jamie had been staring out at the barren trees reaching their spiky fingers up at the sky, and he hadn't even seen Bennett approach. Bennett's arms were around him, warm and familiar, but their weight was suddenly claustrophobic.

He pulled away, running his hands through his hair and tugging at it. When he was a very small child, he'd pulled and pulled at his hair until he had bald patches, and he still had trouble keeping himself from yanking at it when he was stressed.

"I—we can get a hotel here," Jamie said, without turning around to look at Bennett. "I… should go back to… I need to get something from my house for my grandma but—"

"Why don't we swing by your house, get whatever you need, and then we can check in somewhere?"

"Okay, or… what if—I could take the car and—I don't need to drag you all the way to Welch, it's not a big deal—"

"Insurance will be voided if I'm not the one driving," Bennett said. "I didn't add you as a driver when I rented it."

"Fuck. Okay, well—"

"I really don't mind—you said it's about half an hour, right?"

"That's not the point—"

"Jamie, what's going on?"

Jamie whirled around to look at Bennett. His hands were in the pockets of his wool coat, hunched against the chill, his eyes the same color as the sky. He looked strong and stern and beautiful and far, far too good for some shitty kid who'd grown up in Welch, Georgia.

Tears welled up in his eyes—of course they did, because he couldn't have a single strong emotion that didn't in tears apparently.

"I’m embarrassed, okay?" Jamie said. "You're seeing all these intimate, shitty parts of my life, and you keep acting like it's not a big deal but it is a big deal because—because—"

You're going to realize you don't want me, but he couldn’t finish the thought. He trailed off, looking up at Bennett pleadingly, and then Bennett was kissing him then, so fiercely it was almost painful, right there in front of the entrance to the Smithtown Hospital.

"Jamie Larsson," Bennett said roughly, pulling back. "What can I say, what can I do to convince you that I'm not going to judge you about anything? I want to see all these parts of your life because I want to know you, all the unglamorous bits and pieces. I want it all, okay?"

"You say that now—"

"Jamie," Bennett said, and it was a very specific tone Jamie recognized—it was the tone Bennett used when Jamie was spiraling off into anxiety about something and Bennett was trying to keep him grounded. "You're panicking right now and it's completely understandable, but I need you to take a deep breath. We're going to go pick up whatever you need, we are going to get dinner, and you're going to get a good night's sleep."

Jamie took a deep, shuddering breath, and when he met Bennett's eyes, he could tell Bennett really believed what he was saying. And suddenly, all the fight had drained out of him. Bennett seemed to sense it, because he caught Jamie in a tight embrace and Jamie let himself sag against Bennett, held up by the strength of Bennett's grip on him.

"There you go," Bennett said, rubbing Jamie's back. "We're going to get it figured out."

After a while, he let Bennett lead him to the car.

"GPS won't work out in Welch," Jamie said weakly. He was exhausted now and he leaned his head against the window. "Well, it'll get you kind of close, but not close enough."

"Why don't we go tomorrow morning?" Bennett suggested, but Jamie shook his head.

"I want to check on the house," Jamie said. "Make sure everything's okay. I think I'm not going to sleep well if I'm constantly wondering if a paramedic left the door wide open or something." He couldn't quite explain why he needed to get back there as soon as possible—it would be more sensible to wait until morning, but he couldn't shake the superstitious dread that if he didn't go tonight, something awful would happen.

Bennett insisted they at least grab something to eat before they went to Welch, which was probably for the best. They'd gotten bagels at the airport, but Jamie had only picked at his, and now he felt weak and shaky. They stopped for sandwiches at a deli on the way out of town and ate in silence.

Though it was dark, Jamie still recognized every curve of the road that wound out of town to the little community of Welch. He looked out at the darkness—the moon was just a faint crescent, barely strong enough to shine through the clouds, and there weren't many lights beyond the occasional farmhouse.

When he was little, the drive to Smithtown had seemed like such an undertaking, a long trek that required car snacks and plenty of books to read in the back seat and serious mental fortitude, and he was still always a little caught off guard by how short the trip seemed as an adult.

"There's a turn up here on the left. Slow down a bit, it's kind of hard to see—yeah, right there. If you keep going, you get into Welch proper, which isn't that impressive."

He guided Bennett to their street and he was glad it was dark. Bennett would see it in the morning, in the harsh, unflattering light of day, but for now, the darkness hid the worst of the shabbiness. He could name all the families that lived nearby still—Thompson, Greer, Allman, and finally—

"Here, this one on the right," Jamie said. There weren't sidewalks or curbs out here, just a little gravel driveway. His grandmother's ancient, champagne colored Volvo was parked where it always was, and Bennett pulled up behind it.

"Okay," Jamie said, more to himself than to Bennett. He got out and glanced around in the moment before Bennett cut the headlights off. The yard was a mess, overgrown with weeds that threw long, spiky shadows. Jamie frowned. Little Danny Allman, as his grandma always called him, who was actually two years older than Jamie, sometimes helped with yardwork, and Jamie made a mental note to ask him to mow the lawn.

The door was locked, and Jamie dug his key out of his backpack and pushed the door open. The familiar scent of home greeted him, an oddly comforting blend of dusty lavender and yellowed newsprint, of oatmeal and cold cream.

He flicked the light on.

"So, this is it," Jamie said. He threw his arm out like he was showcasing a prize on a gameshow, but the joke felt flat and he just felt needy. He glanced at Bennett, whose expression was maddeningly neutral.

Jamie looked around as they stepped inside, trying to see his home through Bennett's eyes. It had been different when Bennett had climbed the creaking stairs to his attic room in Linfield. It was expected—even a little trendy—to have an odd, less-than-desirable living situation when you were a college student. The first time Milo had seen Jamie's room he'd been entranced, going on and on about how quaint and "real" it was. Milo, of course, had grown up in the suburbs of Linfield and had, like many of the artsy students at Bellamy, a wardrobe that was carefully, expensively designed to look like it had just been dragged out of a gutter.

Jamie's room in the attic of an odd Linfield boarding house gave him a strange sort of hipster cred he hadn't even been aiming for, but there was nothing cool or even quaint about the house where he'd grown up.

Had it always looked this… shabby? He noticed things he'd never really dwelled on before—the places where the plaster was chipping on the wall, the dark blooms of water stains on the ceiling like thunderheads, how worn the carpet was from decades of feet tromping from the front door to the kitchen.

"What things did you want to take?" Bennett said. "What can I help with?"

"Oh," Jamie said. "Yeah. Hang on."

He was having trouble holding onto thoughts, all frayed and disconnected like a jumble of mouse-nibbled thread. Twenty-four hours ago, he'd been cracking jokes with Milo in the living room of the university president while fantasizing about sneaking off to blow Bennett in an empty room. Now he was here, his grandma laying half-paralyzed in the Smithtown hospital, and he probably wouldn't be going back to Linfield or Bellamy any time soon.

He wandered down the narrow hall, tracing his fingers along the wood paneling in a daze. The door to his room was open. After he'd left for Linfield, his grandma had converted part of it into a sewing room for herself, but his bed was still there, the familiar blue comforter slightly dusty from disuse. He took his backpack off and sank down onto it, the mattress groaning and sagging under his weight.

He looked around at the tiny room, so familiar and so far away all at once. The last time he'd been back—a few weeks last Christmas—it had been almost fun to sleep in his childhood bed, which he'd long outgrown. He knew at the end of the break, he'd be going back to Linfield, to his real life, not some dusty time capsule in rural Georgia.

Jamie had thought he'd escaped.

Now he pictured waking up each morning, seeing the familiar slant of the light through the trees on his bedroom wall as the day broke, of seeing his tired reflection in the speckled bathroom mirror as he washed his face. He pictured making breakfast for his grandma, of restocking the dented shelves of the hardware store, of seeing faces he'd thought he'd left for good.

He thought of leaving Linfield behind, of leaving Bennett and Kit and Milo and his friends and classes, of the years unspooling before him in a muddle of humid days and trips to the doctor, of driving once a month into Atlanta to find some bar, some anonymous body to lose himself against before returning back to Welch.

He began to cry.

The mattress shifted and creaked, and Bennett was there beside him, gathering him against his chest.

"I—I think I'm going to have to drop out of school," Jamie blurted out. "My grandma can't live alone anymore, at least not for a long time, and there's no way we can afford a live-in nurse or for her to go to some assisted living place—"

"You're not dropping out of school," Bennett said from above him, the words rumbling through his chest.

"Well, I have to," Jamie said.

"There are always other options," Bennett said. He was infuriatingly calm and Jamie wanted to scream and beat his hands against Bennett's chest. He felt so overwhelmed, so hopeless, and even Bennett, who always soothed him, was no help now.

"No there's not—"

"We'll work it out," Bennett said.

"We won't do anything," Jamie snapped, something dark and poisonous flushing through his blood.

"God, don't you fucking get it?" Jamie said, wrenching himself from Bennett's arms. "There's no one else. My mom's dead, we don't have any other family, I’m the only one left to take care of her. She needs me. She raised me—I'm not just going to fucking abandon her in some… home because I want to play college up north."

Bennett's mouth dropped open—Jamie had never gotten angry at him before, not like this.

"And what, you think we're just going to… do some long distance thing? You'll come down and visit me while I'm living here?" Jamie threw his arm out, gesturing to his tiny room. He was really crying now, his face a mess of tears, his words sticking in his throat like wet paper. "It's not going to fucking work. I thought maybe I could have a different life, maybe I could actually do something and get the fuck out, but I should have known that—"

He couldn't finish, because then Bennett was on top of him, pushing him back onto the tiny, sagging bed, covering Jamie's mouth with his in something that was less a kiss and more a claiming.

Jamie made a weak noise of protest, but he let himself be kissed, let Bennett lace their fingers together so his hands were pinned to the mattress under Bennett's warm, lightly calloused palms.

Bennett pulled back abruptly, and Jamie looked up at him, panting.

"What the fuck was that?" Jamie said.

"How can you possibly think that I would let you deal with this on your own?" Bennett said. Bennett was moving, nudging Jamie's legs so Jamie was completely pinned underneath his weight, but it felt safe, not claustrophobic, Bennett's arms a protective cage around him keeping out all the bad things.

"I—" Jamie started, but he didn't know what to say. Bennett's eyes flashed silver and gold in the half-light, and he looked almost angry.

"I love you, Jamie," Bennett said fiercely, as if Jamie might deny it. "I was too stupid to say it earlier, because I love you so much that it scares me."

Jamie's breath caught in his throat, and—goddamnit—fresh tears were falling, because this was everything he'd wanted to hear, but not like this—

"If—if you're saying that because you think it's what I want to hear—" Jamie said, sniffling, his voice thick, "I'm—I'm gonna fucking kill you—"

"It's what you need to hear," Bennett said. Jamie was still trapped underneath him but there was nowhere else he would have rather been in that moment. "Because it's true, and I didn't realize until just now how badly I'd hurt you by not telling you that, every single day, by letting you think there was any way I could ever let you go—"

Jamie whimpered, and then Bennett was kissing him again. He wrapped his legs around Bennett, pulling him closer, grinding their bodies together out of pure desperation, not just for contact but for something else, too, a frantic need to for life to be different than it was right then.

He tugged his hands out from under Bennett's and wriggled out of his own shirt.

"Jamie—" Bennett said, slightly breathless, and Jamie groaned impatiently.

"Please, Bennett," Jamie said, reaching up to undo the buttons of Bennett's collared shirt. "I just—need to feel something good right now, okay? Please?"

Jamie knew this was probably the least attractive way to beg for sex, but he didn't care, and it didn't seem to matter. He half expected Bennett to lay him gently down, to say something about Jamie being emotionally compromised, which would have been an accurate assessment.

But instead, Bennett just looked down at him.

"Oh, Jamie," he said, in a tone as soft as melting caramel, and kissed him once. Then, after a frantic moment of tugging at clothing, the scrape of zippers, and fabric fluttering to the floor like overgrown moths, Bennett was on top of him again, and Jamie was moaning into his mouth as their bodies moved against each other.

Jamie ran his hands over the familiar contours of Bennett's back, the ropes of muscle, the smooth plane of his lower back, to his ass, where Jamie grabbed him, pulling him closer. He broke away from the kiss, wriggling out from Bennett just far enough to reach into his backpack as Bennett kissed down his neck, praying he still had a condom or two stashed in there, leftover from planning ahead in case Bennett ever decided to fuck Jamie in his office.

His hand closed around a foil packet and he pulled himself back underneath Bennett, pressing it urgently into Bennett's hand. He collapsed back onto the pillow and closed his eyes.

Bennett seemed to understand what Jamie needed that night, even before Jamie himself quite knew, and Jamie let himself go pliant and boneless as Bennett rolled him over onto his stomach in the creaky twin bed. Bennett made his way down Jamie's back, kissing every ridge of his vertebrae like they were sacred.

Jamie buried his face in the pillow as he felt tears prick his eyes again—he didn't want Bennett to see, didn't think he could explain exactly why he was crying again, because he wasn't sure he even knew. His world was collapsing around him, and the future was as incomprehensible and unknowable, like peering into the static snow of a broken television, but Bennett was here with him, in the half-light of his childhood bedroom, and Bennett loved him.

Bennett pushed Jamie's legs apart, pulling him back onto his knees, and Jamie inhaled, gasping into the pillow, which smelled faintly of dust and laundry detergent, as Bennett worked his tongue against, and then into, Jamie's hole, until Jamie was completely lost to the sensation, his whole world reduced to just him and Bennett and the protests of the bed frame as he wriggled against the wet heat of Bennett's mouth.

Bennett's mouth was gone, and Jamie was being rolled back over—he opened his eyes just long enough to see Bennett kneeling up, monochromed silver by the faint light, rolling on the condom before climbing back down over Jamie.

And then, Bennett was pushing inside him, slowly, giving Jamie time to adjust—there was a stretch, a burn, but it was somehow what Jamie needed, an edge of pain to keep him there, anchored to the present moment. And when Bennett's cock was buried inside Jamie, their hips flush, Bennett collapsed down on top of Jamie, and Jamie wrapped his arms and legs around Bennett, holding on like a shipwrecked sailor.

They lay still for a moment, breathing in tandem, Bennett's breath hot against his neck, Bennett's body on top of him, Bennett's cock buried inside him, and though Jamie didn't feel happy or calm, he did feel safe, secure in the knowledge that Bennett would be by his side no matter what came next.

Bennett began to move, in long, deep strokes, and Jamie squeezed his eyes shut, giving himself over to his other senses, leaving behind any thoughts. The smell of sex and Bennett's familiar scent, pine and spice and Bennett himself, the whisper of the sheets and the rhythmic creak of the bed, and the feeling of being completely filled, covered, consumed by this man he loved, who loved him back.

When Jamie came, spilling into Bennett's hand between them, it was quiet and deep and shuddering, like sinking under the surface of the water, into someplace dark and peaceful, far from real life.

Afterwards, he lay in Bennett's arms, looking out the window at the tips of the skeletal trees.

"The quiet is so loud," Bennett whispered, and Jamie jumped—he hadn't realized Bennett was still awake. It was true—without the familiar background noises of the city in the distance, the silence pressed in on his ears, the deafening sound of absolutely nothing.

Jamie wriggled around so he was facing Bennett. His arms were folded into his chest between them, and he pressed his fist against his lips, as if trying to shield himself as he spoke.

"You… didn't say that because… you were trying to make me feel better, right?" Jamie asked, so softly the words barely made it out of his throat.

Bennett pushed Jamie's hands out of the way and kissed him gently.

"I love you, Jamie Larsson. And I hope you believe me, and I hope you'll forgive me for not saying it sooner, for not being as brave and wonderful as you."

"Oh, stop it," Jamie said, ducking his head, but Bennett caught Jamie's chin and turned him back to look at Bennett.

"I wouldn't say it if I didn't mean it," Bennett said. "I never have."

"Okay," Jamie said, and Bennett's expression was so fierce, so intent, that Jamie had no choice but to believe him.

He snuggled closer to Bennett, burrowing into the crook of Bennett's arm, and exhaustion hit him like a wall. As Bennett stroked his hair, Jamie let himself drift to sleep.

In the light of morning, he would have to figure out what to do next—but Bennett would be there to help.