"I don't know how to explain it," he said. "I can lie, and you'll
probably think I'm telling the truth. Or I can tell the truth, and
you'll think that I'm lying."
She squeezed his hand. Despite the sweaty heat of the cave, her fingers
were cold as ice. He covered her hand with his free hand and rubbed at
her cold fingers.
"Tell me the truth," she whispered. "I'll believe you."
So he did, in mutters and whispers. He didn't have the words to explain
it all, didn't know exactly how to explain it, but he tried. How he knew
his father's moods. How he felt his mother's love.
After keeping this secret all his life, it felt incredible to be letting
it out. His heart thudded in his chest, and his shoulders felt
progressively lighter, until he thought he might rise up off his bedding
and fly around the cave.
If it hadn't been dark, he wouldn't have been able to tell it. It was
the dark, and the faint lunar glow of Marci's face that showed no
expression that let him open up and spill out all the secrets. Her
fingers squeezed tighter and tighter, and now he felt like singing and
dancing, because surely between the two of them, they could find a book
in the library or maybe an article in the microfilm cabinets that would
*really* explain it to him.
He wound down. "No one else knows this," he said. "No one except you."
He leaned in and planted a kiss on her cold lips.
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