Taron pushed Colin’s shoulders, holding him down before he could stand.
Colin punched at his chest so hard it made Taron’s breath stall for a moment. “To town. Where else would I go with a fractured leg?”
Taron groaned and dragged his hand down his face.
Colin pinched him hard and kicked at him blindly with his healthy leg. “Let go. Don’t fucking touch me.”
Taron let out a groan to drive his point home. For once, he wished he could just scream out his frustration, like most people.
Colin stilled, and anger was gone from his face, replaced by such despair it broke Taron’s heart in half. “You’d do that to me again? Really?”
Taron clutched at his hair in frustration and stepped away. He couldn’t believe this mess. If there was something he’d never prepared for, it was ending up with a partner. He was supposed to be self-sufficient, and the only reason he’d learned about dealing with fractures was because he’d assumed he might have to help himself at some point in the future. And now here he was, falling apart for a guy who hated his guts yet unable to let him go.
Colin snorted, shaking his head. “It’s you who is a threat to me. And because of you I will be miserable forever.”
Taron leaned against the wall with his arms crossed. There was no way out of this situation, because even though Colin was now a ticking time bomb, Taron would never be able to bring himself to dispose of him. He’d fallen into the trap he’d so desperately tried to avoid—caring for another person.
he signed in the end.
Colin screamed and punched the nearest pillow. “Fuck! You! What do you know about being trapped and helpless? I could be home in an hour and a half, but you keep me here like a fucking pet bird, even though I need help. You don’t understand shit!”
Taron wanted to sign to Colin that he wasn’t ignorant to the things he was feeling now, but as soon as he started he worried about his meaning getting lost, or Colin being too drunk to understand his frantic gestures. When he opened his mouth, putting his grief into spoken words proved too hard, so he grabbed a notebook and started scribbling furiously.
Tears prickled his eyes, even though the events he wanted to describe had passed so long ago. This should have been behind him. He’d chosen a path that allowed him to protect himself from history ever repeating itself, only to walk into invisible snares. His fingers got trembly by the end, but he handed the open notebook to Colin, hoping that finding out about Taron’s past would help him understand.
Colin glared at him, but started reading with an annoyed sneer, as if having to deal with Taron’s disability infuriated him.
* * *
I just believe in being prepared for the worst, and your leg is a minor setback. We’ve dealt with it, and even if it hurts now, you will get better. You should be prepared for things in life. My family wasn’t. I was eighteen when our hometown was flooded. We were told to evacuate, but my parents thought they knew better, and that everything would just blow over. When the worst flooding came, it took my family by surprise. My dad sent off my mom and my two younger sisters on a boat to reach safety, and we stayed because the dinghy was too small for us all. We were to climb to the roof if things got bad.
Before that even happened, looters came to our house. Dad tried to fight them off. He shot one, but got thrown out of the window, and into the flood rapids. I killed the other one, and then stayed in the house for a week. I was waiting for mom to come back for me. For dad to maybe find his way back, injured. I needed to be there for them. Our house had barely any supplies, and I ended up living on my sisters’ Halloween candy stash and water filtered as best that I could.
No one of my family survived. I refuse to be caught in a situation like that again. I thought I could do it all on my own. Start a new life, and be only responsible for myself, but now you’re here, and I want you here, and I don’t want to lose you, so we both need to learn to handle shit on our own.
* * *
Colin’s chest moved up and down, and as he read on, the frown on his forehead deepened, making Taron feel like his heart was getting dissected while still beating. Seconds passed in growing tension.