Page 84 of The Rut in the Road

Sort of.

“Okay,” I said out loud.

“I’ll make you some eggs,” he said, immediately moving into the kitchen and starting to pull out pans. “And toast. And bacon.”

“I don’t have bacon,” I told him. “I think there might be some sausage links in the freezer, though.”

“Do you want me to go get some bacon?” He sounded oddly urgent.

I shook my head. “Sausage is fine,” I told him.

“Potatoes?” he asked.

“If you like,” I replied, moving over to the table to get out of his way. Victor let out a little squeak around a mouthful of something. I held out a finger towards him, and he stepped away from the little dish to rub his head against my finger.

I felt oddly emotional about that—the fact that an undead rat that I’d accidentally raised actually liked me.

“He’s getting more… normal-rat,” Raj observed as he pulled the sausages out of the freezer.

“Mason thinks it’s because I raised him with life magic.” I couldn’t remember if I’d told him that already. Thinking was difficult through the headache. It was probably good that nothing I had to do at the séance required extensive recall.

“What do you think?” Raj had found the frozen shredded potatoes that he liked to use for hashbrowns, and set both packages on the counter so he could pull out another pan.

“He’s probably right,” I replied. “Mason usually is. But I haven’t had a chance to go to the library to see what Fiona found, since whatever it is has to be looked at there.”

Raj started with the sausage, and I knew he’d put the eggs and the bread in the grease. For some reason, he liked the potatoes kept separate, seasoned with salt, pepper, and onion and garlic powder. “You should make the time to do that,” he said, his voice mild.

“After Halloween season,” I replied. I probably could find a few hours to go down to the Library of Virginia and look at the couple of books she’d found, but it was hard to get motivated to do what felt like more homework when I had enough of the real kind on top of work. At least Halloween wasn’t usually a big time for papers and exams. Those would come after Thanksgiving.

Raj didn’t say anything, so I pulled my attention away from Victor, who had gone back to eating, to try to gauge his reaction from his body language. I’m not usually very good at reading people’s expressions or posture, but I was getting better at his.

His back was to me, so I couldn’t see his face, but I could see the slight tension in his back and shoulders that told me he was worried or stressed about something. He wasn’t moving sharply, though—as he prodded at the sausages in the pan, his arm motions were fluid, so he wasn’t angry or upset. Probably just worried.

I felt like he was always worried.

And that was my fault.

I felt guilty about it, but, at the same time, I wasn’t going to stop going to work, walking outside, and all of the other parts of my life just so he would worry less. I wasn’t in significant danger—not this time.

Except that I’d just taken a brick to the head. I grimaced.

“What?” Raj asked, having turned around in time to see my expression.

I didn’t want to explain that I might be forced to agree with him about the potential risk to my safety. Instead, I borrowed a tactic that Mason often used: being deliberately vague. “Self-recrimination,” I replied.

“What for?” he asked me.

I shrugged, not looking up. “A lot of things,” I answered.

“Such as?”

I should have known this wouldn’t work with Raj. “Not being more diligent about my magic,” I replied. “Not paying more attention to what was going on at the protest. Not being a better brother. Not being a better employee…” I let the last one trail off. It was hard to explain in a way that would make sense to someone who hadn’t lived my life just how much I owed to Ward and Mason. To explain that even if I gave them every waking minute of the rest of my life, I probably still wouldn’t feel as though I’d been able to repay what they’d done for me.

But at the same time, I also resented the fact that this meant my life wasn’tmine. The fact that it felt like it belonged to other people, even if it only belonged to them for good reasons, instead of bad ones.

When I’d been at Tranquil Brook, my life hadn’t been mine, either. But now my life belonged to other people because I chose to dedicate it to them—to Ward and Mason, for having given me that life in the first place. To Vi, because she was my sister andshe actually cared about what happened to me. To Raj, because he’d saved me and protected me and cared about me. To Sam and Melissa, too, for continuing to be my friends, even though I knew I wasn’t the easiest person to be friends with.

I wanted to be better at being all those things—friend, brother, employee, boyfriend. I just didn’t know how to do all of them at the same time, since it sometimes felt like I kept having to neglect one in order to do one of the others.