Chapter 27

Shaw stared at the space where North had stood before he had turned and stumbled down the stairs, but Shaw wasn’t really seeing anything. He was feeling. He was processing. And a voice that sounded like Dr. Farr’s—but with a static storm in the background, like the voice was playing off an old cassette—that voice was saying something about how it took time to process huge emotions. It took time, and so Shaw needed to give himself time just to feel. And the problem with that, the problem that made Shaw look around the room, the problem that made him stagger toward the dresser, the problem that made him grab the closest copy of Faust and rip clumps of pages from the binding as his breath surged in and out, the problem was that Shaw felt so terrible, he thought he might die.

Most of the conversation with North had been transcribed in Shaw’s brain like strokes of lightning: jaggedly clear chunks, and then whole sections that had been obliterated. What he remembered clearly, what he remembered most clearly, was the disgust on North’s face, the contempt in his voice, the word pathetic. Shaw had feared that North might suspect. Shaw had feared that North might pity him. But this, tonight, staring into the full aspect of North’s scorn, had been worse than anything Shaw could have imagined.

It wasn’t until his fingers scraped across the book’s cover that Shaw realized he had torn every page from the spine, that they littered the floor like autumn leaves. Shaw’s nail beds ached from the pressure of grabbing the pages. His pulse drummed in his fingertips. Shuffling through the spill of white leaves, which rustled around his feet, Shaw followed the hallway toward the living room. He pushed open the door.

Matty’s eyes were red and puffy. Tears streaked his cheeks, and snot hung under his nose. He shot up off the couch when he saw Shaw.

“Stay there,” Shaw said. He worked his jaw, trying to get some moisture into his mouth. “For now, just stay right there.”

“I’ll leave,” Matty said, his face turned toward his feet, his voice rippling with emotion. “I’ll go away and I won’t bother you again.”

“Is he telling the truth?”

Matty’s shoulders drew up. Shaw waited for the denial. He waited for the mixture of outrage and pain. He waited for The fact that you can even ask that. And if Matty said anything like that, if he even hinted at those things, Shaw was afraid of what he might do. Because North was an asshole. North was a self-righteous, arrogant, gaping, bleeding gorge of an asshole. But he wasn’t a liar. Not unless it came to his own secrets.

Matty nodded, and a sob worked his way out before he stifled it with a fist. “Can I please go now?”

For a moment, Shaw braced himself in the doorway. He felt like he was holding up the whole building. Or maybe like the building was holding him. He wasn’t sure he understood gravity, only that he felt it pulling on him like it never had before. The only thing he could say was, “Why?”