It was never effortless to love Aaron Warner. He was a difficult teenage boy who seemed to forget a lot of the time that that was what he was-a teenage boy. He'd always felt that loving or even caring for him would be impossible for all the world to...
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WHEN I ENTER the room, I'm certain someone has destroyed it. The chair has truly made a dent in the door and the mattress has been ruined, little pieces of it on the ground. Warner sits on said chair, his back to me as he stares at the wall.
"Funny," I say, "I thought I left this place with a mentally stable person inside."
"You came back," he says to me but stays seated, his head glancing up at the ceiling.
"Oh no, I was right before," I say, ignoring him. "Clearly a very mentally ill person."
He laughs but there's no humor or life in it. "At least we agree on that much."
My eyebrows furrow. What is going on? "What's wrong?" I take a step forward. "Are you alright? Did something happen to you?"
"I need to get out of here," he says. "I need to leave. I can't be here anymore."
"Warner—"
"Do you know what he said to me? Did he tell you what he said to me?"
I'm so confused. "What?"
"He just walked into my room this morning. He walked right in here and said he wanted to have a conversation with me." Warner laughs again, loud, too loud. Shakes his head. "He told me I can change. He said I might have a gift like everyone else here—that maybe I have an ability. He said I can be different, love. He said he believes I can be different if I want to be."
Castle told him.
He gets to his feet, still not looking at me and apparently careless as to the fact that I can see all of his back. He's shirtless and I can see all of it. The map of scars his father left behind, just as I remember them. As far as I can stretch my mind back no new ones have been added. At least there's that.
"His entire body is tense, tight, muscles straining against his skin. His clothes are in a pile on the floor and his mattress is in the middle of the room and the chair he was just sitting in is facing the wall, staring at nothing at all and I realize he's begun to lose his mind in here.
"Can you believe that?" he asks me, still not looking in my direction. "Can you believe he thinks I can just wake up one morning and be different? Sing happy songs and give money to the poor and beg the world to forgive me for what I've done? Do you think that's possible? Do you think I can change?"
He finally turns to face me and his eyes are laughing, his eyes are like emeralds glinting in the setting sun and his mouth is twitching, suppressing a smile. "Do you think I could be different?"
And suddenly I wish I could be one of those girls that can't think of an answer to give the guy and she's so puzzled as to why she can't breathe normally or why her heart is thundering in her chest, like a never ending storm caused by him. But I know exactly why. Whenever I look into his eyes I see the answers etched into them like someone wrote them down especially for me, so I won't forget why.
