Page 142 of The Sound of Him

His hand slips into mine, warm, the skin on the back of his hand nearly the same shade of brown as the lighter skin of my palm. He squeezes and shifts the rest of his body. I take it as a sign he’s willing to be pulled to his feet and guide him into doing so.

There’s a moment where we just hold onto each other before he pulls his hand from mine in what feels like slow-motion. When I start to walk to my office, he stays just a step behindme and to the left. It makes me itch, but if it’s where he’s most comfortable, I don’t mind.

He climbs straight into his hiding place when we get inside. I turn both locks in case he forgot to, feeling confident enough that he’ll feel safe undoing them to leave if he wants later. The music is still playing. I turn the volume up another two notches and say to the room, “Same rules as always. Soft things only. No disco - bar from ABBA - or shitty country. Help yourself to the snacks. Ya-da, ya-da.”

There’s no response, but after a while I hear the crinkle of packaging, him taking one of the snacks if I had to guess.

When he leaves hours later, he shoots me an almost-smile and a signed,thank you,before he’s turning the locks and slipping out the door.

By the time he reaches his room, I’m already thinking about what I can do to bring that beaming smile, that beautiful laughter, back.

Chapter Twenty-nine

Matt

Time moves differently for me than it does for the others.

It feels like they’re all moving at top speed, their recoveries linear and bright, everything making sense to everyone but me. I’m dragging, haunting, stuck in a cycle of fine-bad-worse. One step forward, two steps back. Three steps back. Four steps back.

I laugh for the first time in so, so long. Loud and bright and nice inside my chest. I feel weightless, warm, alive.

The alive feeling doesn’t last. It drips right out of me, gone within the hour. Then I’m just empty. Lost.Again, again, again.

I’m just a ghost who was sostupidfor thinking he had managed to leave the veil.

Ace brings me to his office. He plays music. I have a snack.

It’s better, he seems to always make things better, but I’m still a ghost, still wrong.

I’m just stuck holding my breath, waiting for the next wrong thing, the next step back.

Just waiting for it to finally be over.

Time moves differently for me

Dr. Singh says it just looks that way from the outside. He winks, reminding me about confidentiality before conspiratorially whispering, “They’re more of a mess than they look, don’t worry.”

Time moves differently for me.

Ace says, “Everyone will get their happy ending, one way or another. Maybe they'll get there before you. So what? You know what I think? If you treat the process like something positive, then maybe you won’t be in such a hurry to get to the ending anyway. What’s that cliché saying about happiness being a journey? It’s like that. Who says you can’t be happywhileyou’re healing? Who cares who’s doing it better or faster? You’redoingit. That’s enough, you know? You smiled again today. Isawit. That was something. That was more than something, Matt.”

And I write,THANK YOU, then,CHEESY.

He laughs, that deep, throaty sound that always seems to settle itself right in my chest and glow.

When I enter his office the next night, he’s somehow acquired one of those throw pillows with words stitched onto them:Happiness is a journey, not a destination.

I laugh almost as hard as I’d laughed in the kitchen that day Maison burned dinner. Ace’s whole face goes soft. Warm.

Then he says, real quiet, “That right there. See? That’s beautiful, and you’ve barely even gotten started.”

I hide in my corner until my eyes stop burning and it’s a little easier to swallow. I wait for the emptiness to come for me, just like it did in the kitchen that day, but it doesn’t. Maybe the wild animal of my heart in my chest chases it off.

When I eventually look at him again, he just smiles and asks, “How do you feel about Ella Fitzgerald?”

Time moves differently for me.

It doesn’t occur to me how lucky I’ve been to spend so much of that time in Ace’s office without being interrupted until Travis comes barreling in without knocking.