Four Letter Word

He didn’t say anything back, but his arms squeezed tighter.

I winced and came up on my toes.

I didn’t tell him to stop. I kept comforting him.

And he kept holding tight.

I have no idea how long we stood there, but I did know I would stand there for as long as he needed.

“What …what are you doing here?”

Brian and I pulled away from each other at the sound of a woman’s voice at my back.

I turned my head and saw the parents of the boy standing just outside the room now. They were both staring at Brian, tears still filling the eyes of the father and the mother with fresh ones on her cheeks.

Brian didn’t respond. I looked to him and he was staring back, his body rigid and yet shaking somehow.

I grabbed his hand again and did the only thing I could think of.

“He’s the one who’s been giving you all that money,” I told the parents, feeling Brian’s hand tense in mine. “For your son. It’s all been from him.”

The father’s shoulders dropped. He stared in disbelief at Brian.

The mother sucked in a breath, her eyes widening as they slid from my face and looked to the man standing next to me. Then her lip started quivering, new tears built behind her lashes, her head started shaking, and she came forward, crying again as she threw her arms around Brian and gave him a hug.

I felt Brian stop shaking and his body go perfectly still. He didn’t reciprocate the affection and he never let go of my hand.

The hug lasted only a couple of seconds and she never said a word to him, then the mother stepped back, covered her mouth, and moved back into the room.

The father came in front of Brian then and placed his hand on Brian’s shoulder. He looked him in the eyes and I knew the man was expressing his gratitude even though he didn’t speak the words.

Maybe he couldn’t.

But Brian heard them. I could feel the tension leaving his body.

When the father stepped away, I looked up at Brian. His eyes had lost their focus and his breathing was shallow.

He was processing what he’d just been given.

It was a lot. I could tell.

I was sure he never expected it.

Brian gave that money knowing he’d never take credit for it.

I stood there silent and allowed him to process, wiping tears away and slowly composing myself.

Then Brian blinked several times through a deep breath, brought our hands that were still together in front of him, and wrapped his other hand around the back of mine.

He stared at our joining.

Someone paged X-ray on the intercom overhead. I told myself I’d respond to that in a minute.

I just needed another minute.

Just one.

“I’m so sorry, Brian,” I told him, finally speaking again, not remembering if I had said that already when I was comforting him minutes ago.

I whispered a lot. I know I whispered I loved him. I couldn’t help it.

His eyes lifted to my face, and I saw how bright they appeared now, still shadowed with sadness but not as much as they were when I first rounded the corner and saw him standing here. He looked different, relieved maybe, but it was almost as if he was hiding that behind a different shade of pain now.

Pain for the parents who had just lost their child. The kind of pain anyone would feel and sympathize with. And pain because he was looking at me and he didn’t know what that meant, where we stood, or how I was feeling, and he worried the worst while thinking it was useless to hope for the best.

“I—”

“I fixed it,” Brian interrupted my sad attempt at small talk, because I honestly didn’t know what to say to him and knew if I didn’t say something and kept watching him hold me and look at me like that, I’d end up kissing him.

I blinked up at Brian, absorbing his words.

“What?” I asked, stepping closer.

He sniffed, and the corner of his mouth tilted up the tiniest bit.

“Those videos are gone, Wild,” he shared. His voice was confident. “All of them. Got everything taken down from that site. There’s nothing left of me on there, and there’s no trace of it anywhere else. It’s gone.”

I heard what he was saying. I understood what he was saying.

I just didn’t believe it.

“How? How did you do that?”

He shook his head and held my hand tighter with both of his, telling me, “Doesn’t matter. It’s done.”

“But what about if someone saved those videos on their own computer or something? They could share them all over the Internet.”

That had become a worry of mine that I’d discovered while lying in bed that first night without Brian.

It stressed me out so badly, I didn’t fall asleep until the sun came up.

“Not an option,” he answered firmly. “That dickhead running the site wouldn’t allow anyone seeing his shit and not paying for it. You couldn’t save images or videos on your own devices. He made sure of that.”

“Oh,” I replied, pulling my lips between my teeth and looking away.

My heart started beating faster.

He fixed it, just like he said he would.

“Wild.”

My eyes slid back to Brian’s.

He opened his mouth, and I knew what he was going to ask me, and for some reason I couldn’t explain, I panicked.

I covered his mouth with my other hand and prevented him from speaking.

“I can’t, Brian,” I blurted out, suddenly feeling overwhelmed, watching his brows pull together, his eyes go sad, and feeling his breath burst against my palm. “I can’t. I’m …I just need to think a little more, okay? This has been really hard and I just, I don’t know if I’m ready.” I slid my hand away and stepped back, pulling my other out of his hold. “I’m sorry.”