Rot & Ruin (Rot & Ruin, #1)(29)

mountains. He spoke without emotion, almost monotone, but long before he was finished, Nix was crying. Benny’s eyes were hard and dry, as if all of his tears had been burned away by what he

’d seen. Nix put her hand on Benny’s, and they sat like that for more than an hour after he was done, watching as the day grew older.

As they sat Nix waited for Benny to turn his hand, to take hers in his, to curl his fingers or thread them through hers. She had never felt closer to him, never believed in the possibility

of them more than she did then. But the hour burned away and turned to ash, and Benny did not return her grip. He merely allowed it.

When the evening crickets began singing, Nix got up and went out through the garden gate. Benny had not said another word since he’d finished telling his tale. Nix really wasn’t sure that

he knew she’d held his hand. Or that she’d left.

She cried all the way home. Quietly, to herself, without drama. Not because she had lost Benny, but because she now knew that she had never had him. She wept for the hurt that he owned, a

hurt she could never hope to remove.

Benny sat outside until it was fully dark. Twice he looked at the garden gate, at the memory of Nix carefully opening it and closing it behind her. He ached. Not for her, but because she

ached for him—and he could feel it now. He’d always known it was there, but now—somehow, for some indefinable reason—he could feel it. And he knew he wanted her. He wanted to break his

oath with Chong and forget that they were just friends and …

He wanted a lot of things. But the world had changed, and when he had the chance to take her hand, he hadn’t.

Why not?

He knew that it had nothing to do with the oath. Or with friendship. He knew that much, but the rest of his mind was draped in weird shadows that blinded his inward eye. Nothing made sense

anymore.

He could feel the heat of her touch on his hand even though she was now out of sight.

“Nix,” he said. But she was gone, and he had let her go.

He got up and slapped dirt from his jeans, then looked up at the yellow August moon that hung in the sky beyond the garden fence. It was the same moon, but it looked different now. He knew

it always would.





14


THE FOLLOWING MORNING WAS COOL FOR THE FIRST DAY OF SEPTEMBER. Benny lay in bed and stared out the window at the dense white clouds stacked tall above the mountains. The air was moist with

the promise of rain.

Benny was awake for more than an hour before he realized that he felt better. Not completely. Maybe not even a lot. Just … better.

It was the last week of summer break. School started next Monday, although with his new job, that would only be half days. He lay there, listening to the birds singing in the trees. Tom once

told him that birds sing differently before and after a storm. Benny didn’t know if that was true, but he could understand why they would.

He got up, washed, dressed, and went downstairs for breakfast. Tom set out a plate of eggs for him, and Benny ate them all and then scavenged the frying pan for leftovers. They ate in

silence almost to the last bite before Benny said, “Tom … the way you do it … Does anyone else do it that way? Closure, I mean.”


Tom sipped his coffee. “A few. Not many. There’s a husband-and-wife team up north in Haven. And there’s a guy named Church who does it in Freeland. No one else here in Mountainside.”

“Why not?”

Tom hesitated, then shrugged. “It takes longer.”

“No,” Benny said. “Don’t do that.”

“Do what?”

“Sugarcoat it. If this is the way it is, if I’m going to have to be a part of it, don’t jerk me around. Don’t lie to me.”

Tom set down his cup of coffee and then nodded. “Okay. Most don’t do it this way, because it hurts too much. It’s too …” He fished for a word.

“Real?” Benny suggested.

“I guess so,” said Tom. He tasted the word. “‘Real.’ Yeah … that about says it.”

Benny nodded and ate the last piece of toast.

After a while Tom said, “If you’re going to do this with me—”

“I didn’t say I was. I said ‘if.’”

“So did I. If you’re going to do this with me, then you have to learn how to handle yourself. That means getting in better shape and learning how to fight.”

“Guns?”

“Hand to hand first,” Tom said. “And swords. Wooden swords in the beginning. We’ll start right after school.”

“Okay,” Benny said.

“Okay … what?”

“Okay.”

They didn’t speak again that morning.



When Benny got to the garden gate, he stood looking at it, as if it was a dividing line between who he had been before Tom had taken him out into the Ruin and who he was going to be from now

on. For a week he had been unable to open that gate, and even now, his hand trembled a little as he reached for the latch.

It opened without a crash of drums or ominous lightning forking through the clouds. Benny grinned ruefully, then headed down the lane toward Chong’s house.