Jack shook his head. “It was almost the opposite of that. You went away to boarding school, and Belle stopped talking to me. I thought maybe she’d figured something out. Maybe she suspected there was something different about me, and she didn’t want to be around me anymore, and if that was true… well, I could lose my mom next. I could lose my brothers, because my mom would try to keep me away from them, so I couldn’t be a boy.” Jack pulled his hands away from Raven, curling them into fists. “I couldn’t be a boy, because I would lose everything, so I pushed myself away instead. I lived in denial and I didn’t look anyone in the eye for years. Then you came home and…”

“You looked me in the eyes.”

“Yes.”

Raven smiled softly. “And you wanted me to know.”

“No.” Jack chuckled, a sharp, brittle sound. “No, I was terrified of you knowing. I retreated into myself even more until that officer came and slid cuffs around my wrists. He locked me in a cell and he told me I could be there for a long time. And suddenly I realized… I was going to lose everything anyway. I was going to lose everyone, and I’d never even found myself. I’d never even faced myself all the way.”

“So you did.”

“I’m trying.” Jack’s head dipped down, his fingers digging into the blankets. “I’m trying, Raven, but I’m so scared. Everything’s going to be different now.”

“You’re right.” Carefully, with the most delicate of movements, Raven cupped Jack’s face. He trailed his fingers across Jack’s lips. “Everything’s going to be so much better. You get to be who you really are, and I get to know you, so just… keep talking to me, all right? Keep letting me know you.”

Jack shook his head, finally meeting Raven’s gaze. Gripping it. “The time for talking has passed,” he said, a soft smile on his lips.

“Has it, now?” Raven was smiling too. Grinning, actually, as gardens bloomed inside him. There were petals strewn across his heart. He wished he’d had time to trail petals across the bed, but then again, this wasn’t his room. “Should we go—”

“No time.” Jack guided him up from the floor, where he’d been kneeling, reverently, and then they were falling backward onto the bed. “I need you now. But, Raven?” A pause, as Jack’s gaze evaded his. “Did it change anything, what I told you? Did it make you love me less?”

Raven leaned in, brushing his lips across Jack’s forehead. His nose. His chin. Before his lips found Jack’s, and he lost himself in a kiss that he would remember for the rest of his life, he whispered into Jack’s mouth, “More.”

19 I Can’t Do This Without You