Page 46 of On Dry Land

“Me either,” I agree stoutly. “Wouldn’t even consider it.”

Both of us groan in sync when the pool they end up building isn’t heated and has built-in loungers at one end.

“What a mockery,” Dryden comments.

“A complete waste of space! Now they can hardly swim.”

We share a look over the empty box of cheese crackers. Dryden grabs a fourth toaster pastry, and I scoop up another bite of popcorn.

“You’re pretty lazy, huh?” I comment, charmed by Dryden’s choice of how to spend the remainder of the day. Even before I was living on the street, I never spent time lying around in bed like this. It feels dangerously extravagant.

“I am. I never tried it before I moved here, and now I’m too slothful to change.”

Chuckling, I put another kernel of popcorn into my mouth. “I never would have guessed you’ve got a sweet tooth either.”

“These aren’t sweets,” he protests, foot still gently swaying, body relaxed back against his pillows. “They’re carbs and fruit.”

“I don’t think pastry filling counts as fruit.”

“Corn is a vegetable.”

Now I laugh, holding out the popcorn to him as he reaches for a handful. I scoop up another couple of pieces of popped vegetables, too, smiling as I chew. I’ve never been with Dryden and had him quite this relaxed. Even the evenings where he sat outside while I swam or I joined him for a hockey game, he didn’t act like this. It’s like a whole new persona was unveiled when we came through the doorway, like he slipped off his mask and left it in the closet, giving the real Dryden a chance to breathe.

I feel…happy. Not happy in the way I’m used to, when I get a lot of views on my videos or I’m able to eat multiple days in a single week. But happy in a way that feels as soft and cozy as the sweats he loaned me, like I’m being cradled in someone’s arms and know if I close my eyes, I’ll be safe to sleep.

“Did you have fun?” I ask Dryden softly, putting the popcorn off to the side and tucking my hands into the sleeves of my sweater.

“Mm?”

“Building the snowmen.”

“Yes,” he replies, so quickly that I know it must be the truth. I grin happily, staring sightlessly at the television. “Good thing I kept the bowler.”

“Good thing,” I agree, looking over at him at the same time he turns his head toward me.

He’s lying nearly flat, the pillows scrunched up under his neck and shoulders, hoodie fabric rucked up enough to show me an inch of brown skin along his back. His hands are resting on his chest, half a toaster pastry sticking out of the foil packaging. He looks sleepy and open, like I could ask him anything at all right now and he’d tell me. Slowly, I reach my hand across the bit of mattress between us, only to snatch it back when I realize it’s my scarred one. He won’t want me to touch him with that. On the TV, a woman’s laughter can be heard over the sound of an electric drill.

“Sun’s already going down,” Dryden notices, yawning slightly as he glances out the windows on the far wall. I check the time on my phone.

“Took us a bit to build the snowmen,” I say fairly. Not to mention, after we crawled into this bed, we haven’t once crawled out. At least five separate episodes have played while we’ve been watching, and nearly all the snacks have been consumed. I’m probably going to have a stomachache.

Scooting down so I’m less on the pillows, I roll to face him, propping my head up on my hand. I’m still a little afraid of him, I realize, although it’s slowly bled into a different breed of monster. Gone is the thrumming awareness of how he could be dangerous, how the energy between us had been stretched taut with fear and mistrust. I’d looked at him and added up all the ways he could cause pain, and he’d looked at me and done precisely the same.

Now, the fear is less of the bodily harm kind and more of the emotional. I really like him. I like being here. A little too much, if I’m honest with myself, because I don’t belong. I walked into his life, and both of us are well aware of the fact that I’ll be the one walking out. My brain acknowledges that I should be more concerned with losing the comforts I’ve found here—shelter and food and a job I so far enjoy. But the rest of me is dreading the day I put my back to Siren’s Point, tiny little fissures of pain already cracking the glaze around my heart. I’m going to miss Dryden, whether our relationship stays as it is or stretches a little further.

Carefully, I touch my fingertips to his arm, gently pressing against the firm mound of his bicep beneath the bulky hoodie. He’s still watching me, as he usually does, with that firm eye contact I’ve grown accustomed to. Intimidating, sure, but also somehow reassuring. I’ve never felt like I’ve had to fight to have or hold his attention. It’s there, and it’s obvious.

“I have an uncle with a prosthetic leg,” he tells me, seemingly out of nowhere. “The residual limb and the scarring doesn’t bother me.”

Ah. That’s why.

“You only saw the scars from a distance. When I was in the pool. It’s bad up close, and you can feel them if you touch my forearm. It makes people uncomfortable.”

“It makes you uncomfortable,” he comments, and I sigh, unable to deny it.

“Sometimes, especially if I’m in front of a mirror, I’ll catch a glimpse of it and think, whose arm is that? That’s not my arm. It doesn’t happen as much recently, but sometimes I’ll get phantom pain. The nerves grew back eventually, but for a long time, bits of my skin were just numb. And then other times, I’d wake up in the middle of the night feeling like someone had dipped my forearm in kerosene and struck a match. It’s kind of wild, the things your brain can convince you are happening.”

“Or not happening. That is your arm, after all.”