Page 68 of Bittersweet & Strange

So why does the thought of him quietly accepting everything I do feel so different from what I imagined?

I think of Boone in the greenhouse with dirt on his fingers, guarding that ridiculous cherry pit as carefully as if I’d handed him something precious. I think of him wandering through rooms he’d never seen and asking questions about everything. I think of the way he laughed when he caught me listening to the book I claimed I intended to sleep through, the stories he told me about his father, the arguments he started over things that would never have occurred to me to question. He touches everything. Questions everything. He fills rooms that remained silent for years simply by walking into them.

That is Boone.

The man who went still under my hands today was not.

I lower my head against the chair and close my eyes.

Perhaps I’ve been so consumed with keeping him that I never considered whether the Boone I kept would still be the Boone I wanted.

The thought irritates me enough that I nearly dismiss it, but there’s too much truth in it. I can lock every door. I can take away his horse. I can keep him within arm’s reach for the rest of his life if I choose, and eventually he may stop fighting altogether.

Today proved that.

But what exactly would I have then?

A man who eats because I put food in front of him. Sleeps because there is nothing else to do. Touches me because resisting has become more exhausting than allowing it. A man who no longer laughs at me or argues with me or reaches for my hand because he wants it. A quieter Boone. An obedient Boone.

An empty Boone.

I don’t want that.

The realization is immediate enough to anger me all over again, because the alternative is the one thing I have refused to consider from the beginning.

Perhaps keeping Boone intact requires giving him the ability to leave me.

I stare at the fire.

No.

I reject the thought immediately, but it returns almost as quickly.

If I open the door and he leaves, I may lose him.

If I never open it, I may lose him anyway.

The difference is that one leaves me without Boone. The other leaves me with his body moving through my castle while everything that made him Boone disappears a little more each day.

I don’t know which possibility I hate more.

Even when I eventually get up to make dinner, I can’t shake the thoughts following me through the castle. I prepare his meal as I always do and arrange everything on the tray. I tell myself that when I enter his room, I’ll find the same Boone I always find. Angry perhaps. Frightened certainly. But alive with whatever emotion he happens to be throwing my way.

I don’t.

I unlock his door and step inside.

He’s standing at the window, staring out at the mountain with his back to me. He doesn’t turn when the lock clicks or when I cross the room. He doesn’t acknowledge me when I set the tray on the table. He doesn’t ask whether he can come out. He doesn’t demand that I let him see his father.

He doesn’t beg or plead.

He doesn’t even look at me.

I understand then that whatever happened earlier, I didn’t get through to him at all.

I broke something.

“Come eat,” I say.