He’s trying to be strong, not just for himself, but for her; because even though she’d hate to admit it, and she’d hate to reveal just how lost she’s been without him, it’s etched across her body and her features the moment she steps out into the pale light of the moon. Etched across her skin in the hollowed out gaunts of her collarbones and the sharp, jagged lines of her once slender fingers ––– it makes him sick to think that he’s caused this, makes him shake and stumble across all of those hurdles in his mind he was keeping between himself and her. Maybe… Maybe I should just… No! He snaps his head away, glaring out to the side as she spits a few words at him in haste and anger.
Maybe. Yes. No. The furrowing of his brow and the way he’s grinding his teeth together seems to give an indication that he’s found a way, somehow, to be mad at her for being mad at him. He’s angry that she spent so long caring, he’s infuriated that she’s let herself get into this wreck over someone like him, he’s… Perplexed, after all this years still. The insecurity buried deep inside his soul has never, not for a moment, let him believe he was worthy of anything good. Anything half-decent. So when Tessa had shown him interest when they were kids, not even yet out of the monkey bar and tricycle stage, it was almost too much. He shakes his head as he thinks about their first encounter, their first shared ice cream, their first whispers beneath a gnarled oak tree ––– “ You should’ve given up. ”
He’s using that trademark bitterness that she’d grown to despise. The bitterness he’d received from one too many late nights dealing with Aiden, both of them hoping and praying the tiny brunette waiting at home would never find out the kind of people they were. He means it though, deep beneath the rumbling of his voice and the barely there quiver, he means it. He doesn’t just mean with the posters, or the searching, or the crying and the screaming; he means all those years ago in the sandbox. Holden can feel Tessa moving closer, even after months apart he knows the patterns of her walk and the tell-tale signs of her movements, and all he seems able to do is concentrate harder on the ground beside him. The anger is still there, festering and bubbling, and all he can do is try to control it.
The punches are thrown and land quicker than his tortured senses can even register them ––– “ Tessa, ” he begins, but is quickly drowned out by the volume of her voice, beginning to build to a crescendo he’s not sure he wants to hear the climax of. She’s cursing and, in any other situation, he’d be scolding her for it. Begging her to keep the words he utters with such reckless abandon out of her vocabulary because it reminds him of places he doesn’t wish to return to. ‘ Dead. Dead. Dead. ’ She repeats it so often he begins to wonder if he really is dead and this is just some kind of awful Hell.
As soon as the punches begin they stop, and her balled up fists are left on his chest and her tearful sobs continue to puncture the air. He moves his head to look at her, instinctively, and moves his hands up, his unfurled fingers hovering around her wrists as if he’s scared to touch her out of fear she might break.
The lie falls so easily from his lips he almost gags on the bile it brings up in the back of his throat, his fingertips now grazing lightly against her skeletal wrists and near translucent skin. What can he say to make it better? He can’t admit the truth, it’d kill her. Tear her apart in ways she could’ve never imagined. All he can do is pretend he’s been fearing for his life. “ I escaped a few months ago but… ” He pauses, acts as if he’s choked up on a memory that doesn’t even exist, “ I couldn’t. ” The part was truthful, at least, if only in part.
He seethes slight anger as he lets his hands drop to his sides again, looking down at her with a heavy heart but a stern face. “ Why did you let yourself get like this? You thought I was dead? When was the last time you even ate? ” He throws his hands up in the air, if only to distract himself from the heavy thumping in his chest, “ you think starving yourself was going to bring me back?! ” Guilt, of course. None of this would’ve happened if he’d have just stayed and fixed his damn mistakes, but that’s not who he is. He’s an awful coward. “ I can’t––– ” He’s so disgusted with himself at this point he can barely find the words to feed his bullshit, bare-faced lies, and instead uses a finger to tilt her head upwards towards him, dropping it immediately once their eyes met and she could see the steeliness behind his pupils.
“ Come on, I’m taking you home. ”
