When the Clouds Fell

Chapter 22: In Which Things Start to Feel Better

The first time Hayden noticed something wrong with Noah, he saw it over the rim of his plastic juice cup. It had been barely a month after him and Marie began living with the McLeods. He noticed five-year-old Noah's shadow twitching under the early morning sun, warping in and out of shape as he pushed his toy trains.

The fifth time Hayden noticed something wrong with Noah, he witnessed it from between a crack in the door. It was when they had been playing hide-and-go-seek with Marie and the twins. He saw Noah staring at his hands in horror as wisps of black smoke rose from beneath his fingernails. Hayden had simply thought it to be a trick of his eyes.

The twelfth time Hayden noticed something wrong with Noah, he realized it when he did not feel Noah's warmth next to him on their shared beds. He had sat up, rubbed the grogginess from his eyes, and then gone looking for him. He found him in the atrium that led to the backyard door, sitting in a pool of silver moonlight. His eyes were black where they should have been white. Hayden had pretended not to see anything.

The twenty sixth time Hayden noticed something wrong with Noah, he watched it from his perch on a tree in their front yard. Noah sat on the porch stroking Buttercup's sleek coat. He paused for an abnormally long moment, then began to run his fingers through her fur in the opposite direction. The blackness seeped from her fur into his hands, staining them and leaving her completely white. The cat leapt out of his lap and hissed at him. Noah turned his hands over, inspecting the inky fingers and wiggling them like he was testing their mobility. Then he looked up directly at Hayden and smiled. A wide, creepy grin spread across his lips and did not reach his black and gold eyes. Hayden had turned his cheek the other way.

The first time Hayden admitted that there was something wrong with Noah, it was already too late. There was already blood on his hands and there were already two graves beneath his feet. On that last day Noah spent with them, their house had come crashing down on their heads in every sense except the literal.

Maybe Hayden should have stopped Noah when he caught him escaping that night. But the doorway had seemed so narrow and Noah had seemed so far away that he once again felt compelled to close his eyes and pretend he never saw anything.

There was bliss in ignoring issues. But there was also a constriction in his chest that made it impossible to breathe whenever he thought about them.

If he could turn back the clocks, he would most definitely choose to return to that time. Before rain started to feel like daggers and the emptiness on his bed made him shiver all night. Before he tried to seal his heart with Vince and Karen, only to realize that a Noah-shaped hole could only be filled by a Noah-shaped person.

But, since clocks did not turn back and time only knew one direction, Hayden supposed this was the best he could do.

"I'm sorry, Noah," he said, leaning back on the broken wall. "I'm sorry you had to endure this on your own. I told you I'm here for you, and I meant it."

A ship in a harbour was safe but that was not what ships were for.

Noah mopped at his face, clearing the tears. He sniffled and looked up with puffy, red-rimmed eyes. He sat there and stared at Hayden for what felt like an eternity. Not saying anything, just staring.

Hayden waited, trying not to panic. Uneasiness prickled at his insides, gnawing away at what little hope he had at mending this severed bond.

Right when he thought he should take the first plunge, Noah beat him.

"Why?" he asked.

Hayden blinked. "What do you mean 'why'? Do I need a reason?"

"I'm worthless, Hayden. If I meant anything don't you think my family would have come after me?" He pulled at invisible flint on his sleeves. "And you aren't my family, so, why are you so insistent on it?"