The way Anthony has been avoiding my gaze for the last two weeks is enough to give me a serious shot through the heart. If I can't figure out what is haunting him, then I can't help.

"Anthony?"

His muffled yell wafts through the window as I see him on the patio, leaned forward in a lawn chair as he rests his head in his hands. I skip down the stairs, my best smile on as I casually stroll through the back door. Plopping down on the end of the short table between the two seats, I shuffle my feet. When did this tension settle around us, I'm unsure, but I'm determined to break it. 

"Can we talk? I really can't think of anything to help if you won't talk to me."

"Dante, just stay with me and I'll be okay." The shine that used to hold in his eye is lost and the weak smile he barely plasters across his face makes him appear dead.

"No. Don't give me that answer. I need you to talk to me. We haven't spoken one word about anything solid since the day of Thanksgiving. I feel like you're drifting away from me! You're the first person that everything feels okay with and I want you to stay, but I don't want anymore mystery. I need transparency."

The absent look in his eyes begins to fill with fear and guilt weighs heavily on my shoulders. I'm pressuring him and I know that he's scared. I should be ashamed for my empty threats. 

"I won't leave you, Anthony. Not for any reason in this world, but the distance is wearing out our relationship. Every day I discover new and hidden things about you. I want to know you and be able to answer questions that people ask me. I don't want to feel like I love a stranger anymore . . . "

There's more emotion etched across his soured face as he groans into his hands, hiding anything I might gather. 

"Dante, if I told you everything, you'd leave me. You'd run the other way and I don't blame ya."

Anthony runs his hands through his messy curls, losing them in his hair as he tightens his grip and grimaces. 

"I'm. Not. Leaving."

"What if I told you that I killed someone?! Would you stay then, Dante?! WOULD YOU FIND A REASON TO STAY THEN OR WILL YOU LEAVE LIKE EVERYONE ELSE?! DON'T LIE TO ME AND TELL ME YOU'D STAY WITH ME!"

The tremors rippling through his body are even plaguing his voice now. He's easily gone from an exhausted wreck to a screeching panic, his soft golden eyes now wide and frantic as he grips the side of the chair. When what he says finally sinks in, he covers his face, apologizing quietly. However, I can't be bothered to care about his yelling because he's basically admitted guilt to murder, but I won't let that phase me. 

"Why didn't you tell me that this was your family's home?"

"What? That's your question? I killed someone and you want to know why I didn't tell you about the house?"

"Yes."

"Well, I wanted to make sure the new owner would actually take care of the home and not just because I was right there. But the longer I knew you, the more I wanted to hide it so you didn't think I was crazy. The ten thousand was just to find someone fast. I didn't even-haha," his empty chuckles echo around the open air as his sad eyes glance up to the sky," I used all of that money to help you fix up the house and assure my final expenses were taken care of before I left my house to you."

"Final expenses?"

Silence, deafening and harrowing in the face of these words. I didn't know that he was so broken. How have I gone so long without knowing? His head tilts towards me as he smiles, tears streaming down his cheeks and shining along his neck as he teeters on the brink of a meltdown. 

"I was going to kill myself before I met you, Dante. I've been so empty since my family died. I had nothing left. I couldn't even go inside of my own home anymore . . . "

His expression falls as he leans back in the chair, defeat crashing across his body. "Until that day you reached out for me, I wasn't here. Not really. It's been a long time since I've felt like I existed. Even if you were a little grumpy all of the time, you were still kind. You still reached out to hold my hand."

His eyes close, "So what is the next question?"

Nothing can come to mind as I sift through possible questions, but none of them reach out as much as what happened to his family. I want to ask, but is it appropriate? Can I even ask such a question in respect to how he feels?

After putting in some thought, I stand, brushing the invisible dirt from my backside as I lay beside him on the stretched out lawn chair, half over him with my ear to his heart. 

"Anthony, will you tell me what happened to your family? I won't ask any more questions today."

The thumps that are now drumming against my ear become rapid, beating heavily inside of his chest. I put my hand over him, hugging him firmly as if he were ready to run away, and I wasn't entirely sure that he had turned down that option yet. The tension in his chest receded a minute fraction before I looked up. I'd never noticed the fine lines that sat under his eye, lazily scattered through bags that made me feel sleepy. 

"My father was abusive. He  would drink and come home, usually target myself or my brother. I would try to step in a lot when he'd go for my brother, but life has a funny way of making you so terrified that you can't move sometimes. It was a Saturday and I remember waking up early, but staying in bed. I was seventeen."

His lips are thin, his brows furrowed as the look of guilt muddled with hesitation is spread across his eyes over a thick blanket of pain. I shouldn't have asked. I can't even look at him after making him relive this and I look down at our feet. 

"The first thing I remember hearing was the sound of him yelling, throwing stuff through the house. It wasn't abnormal for him to wake up still buzzing from the night before and keep drinking. It was a little off that I didn't hear anything else shortly after. I thought he'd stomp up the stairs, yell for one of us, continue throwing things, but it just went silent. I remember hearing him calmly walking up the stairs, thinking I'd be next on his list of fury fueled violence, but he walked into his room and closed the door. Back then, I worked at the diner with Mike. I had a few hours that morning so that someone could go to the doctor so I went in. When I came home he was laughing in his room."

Anthony shudders, his face empty and his eyes closed much like he were watching a horrible movie behind his eyelids. 

"It was everywhere along the stairs, blood dripping from the hand rail, in the footsteps leading there. His laughter was like goo oozing down the walls and coming to swallow me into a void. It was sick and pleased with itself. It's hard to describe the laughter as menacing and also light and fleeting. When I glanced into the kitchen, it was a mess. Blood all over the walls and counters where he'd come in and smeared his hands all over everything, as if he were painting a mural. It didn't click in my head that all of this had to come from a person until just after that. Like shock had stopped me from thinking clearly. But when it came back, I was jumping the stairs three at a time. He came out of my little brother's room, holding the big kitchen knife in his hand and cackling in an unruly and unstable manner. What was behind him was a disaster, my entire world slaughtered and slathered all over the walls and soaking the bed. There were two slumps of dead weight on the bed. Once I looked, it was impossible to tell what was who. The only thing you could see was that neither would leave that room breathing. When I turned my attention back to him, he had leaned down like he was preparing to wrestle with me, the knife still in his hand. I didn't know what I was doing. I just moved out of instinct, I guess. I can remember the jagged breathing and the sweat pouring down his face. The smell of liquor filling the hallway with his thick breath."

The memories are flooding through me and I try not to visualize them. I try to just listen, brushing my hand over his arm as I push my face against his chest more, his heart quiet and beating slowly under the numbing guilt. I can feel it soaking his shirt and emanating off of his body. It's like poison.

"When we fought, it was like fighting a bear. We weren't on the same level even though I was in sports and I was more athletic. He couldn't feel the pain anymore."

His hand moved up, running along the scar under his shirt out of habit or recollection. I'm not sure he even noticed that he did it.

"On a fluke, he dropped the knife when he stumbled. I didn't even think about what I was doing. I just felt so much and nothing all at once. He'd killed them, mutilated them. He'd taken away everything from me. I was so angry and so sad and so shocked. I was furious. I lost control of my actions and I stabbed him before I thought about it. When I sat there, I realized what I had done. But it was like I couldn't stop and I just kept doing it until I felt empty again. Maybe I was tired. It felt like it had been hours since I had come home, but it had only been minutes separating me from my previous life. One where I felt at home even with the abuse. I had a family. After I started to feel disoriented and dizzy, I stumbled and rolled down the stairs. I couldn't muster the energy to get up anymore. I couldn't call an ambulance. I didn't know if I even wanted one anymore. I wanted to die. But Mike walked into my house after the door had been left open to drop off my bag that I'd left at work with all of my schoolwork in it. He had wanted to make sure I had my homework to finish before Monday Since I had only just started it during the slower hour. Mike saved me and I hated him for it. There was an investigation where they suspected me of doing it all, but eventually cleared me of everything. The town talks a lot. I avoided everything, lived in the camp I'd made in the woods, showered and went to the gym every day, and worked my shifts with as much effort as I could. But I still felt like I wasn't actually here anymore. Empty, lifeless, out of body. Whatever you want to call it, I was already dead. A walking corpse."

The last three words come out in a hoarse whisper, but he clears his throat, his eyes watering now as he wipes them.

"Then I met you after trying to tie up all of my loose ends. I don't know why I felt so happy around you. I'd learned to pretend and act like everything was fine, but around you was the first time I actually felt like I was here. I can be in this house when I'm with you. I feel tangible."

The way his body softens around me as he hugs me makes my body warm again. He ruffles his hand in my hair as he smiles, taking a deep breath and pushing it out before we lay in silence.

After an hour, he has fallen asleep, his hair finally still and his expression soft as he looks unweighted by life. I don't want to admit how much time I've spent watching him sleep. It is like a guilty pleasure. It's the only time I can see the real Anthony and not the hurting Anthony or the many happy faces of him. It is when I can see the blank slate that makes me happy. His life has been so harsh to him and yet he's still so kind and considerate. How could someone treat him so terribly? What would have happened if no one had ever bought this house? What if we had never met? What if Anthony had completed his goal of tying all of those loose ends and disappeared forever?

The more I think about it, the harder it is to imagine a world without someone so sweet. It's a bitter feeling I get next. There's been no relief for him in so long. I can't be the only thing that he needs. He was investigated for the murder of his entire family after witnessing the instability of his father and the gruesome scene left behind. He wanted to die. I can't suddenly make it all okay. I'm not enough for that. Worry sets in and soaks deep into my bones, setting roots that would prove impossible to ignore. What if he isn't being honest with me? What if he's still so broken that he wants to leave? What if he's destroyed on the inside and all of his happiness is a lie? All of his beautiful smiles, all of his laughter, all of his bubbly chatter and his warm words.

I have to pinch myself to distract my thoughts. I can't keep thinking. I'm going to turn into my own worst enemy.

Closing my eyes, I focus on my breathing, the beating of his heart, the sounds of the animals chittering in the trees and anything else that lulls me into the sleep that I desperately need.

---

Anthony

It's morning again and recalling everything I said last night is depressing. We've slept out on the patio all night in this uncomfortable chair and it feels like my spine is in peril, but I dare not move. It's not like I expect Dante to run away now. He's been by my side all night, but I do feel like we'll be more distant. There will be more questions that I don't want to answer. As he stirs at my side, I sit up with him, cradling him in my lap and rocking him with me. It appears to be a romantic gesture, but I'm really trying to work out all of the kinks in my back that are piercing all the way through my torso, making it painful to breathe.

"I'm not going anywhere."

His murmur in his sleep pulls at my heart, sending more confusion into my soul as I stop rocking. He's sleeping so peacefully and I'm not sure I know how. He appears so comfortable in the same hands that have taken someone's life. I know that it was self defense, but that changes nothing. I watched him die, I could have stopped, I killed him. I stand up, carrying Dante into the house and up to my old room, laying him down on my old bed. I'm surprised that he didn't buy a new one. The plastic over it had preserved it for so long that it is in the same condition I bought it in, minus some wear from this last year or so without the plastic. I pulled the covers over him, making myself comfortable behind him and burying my face into his shoulders. His smell is so sweet and it makes me wonder how such an unreachable place for him could smell so good. I can feel his heart beating against my face, as soothing and repetitive as his steady breathing.

The sleep that I fall into is nice and welcoming, warm. I don't feel the fear anymore. He knows. I'll have to talk to Mike tomorrow, maybe at the gym, but I feel unshackled again.

The daylight comes all too soon and Dante is up, grumpy and groggy as usual as he stumbles to the bathroom ahead of me.

"I'll make some breakfast while you shower."

The best response from him that I can get right now is a grunt and a nod, but it is sufficient as I head downstairs. Starting a pot of coffee will wake him up and get him started, and after that comes a big breakfast with eggs, bacon, and all of the trimmings. Maybe one day I'll be able to cook the eggs without busting the yolks, but he never complains. His hands cover my eyes and he whispers guess who in my ear.

"Ummm, the neighbors? Mike? No, Sally!" When I spin around, he giggles and hops up on the bar stool. This is what my life is supposed to be. Him.