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resent it, not when it was saving him
    again. He was embarrassingly flushed, too tense to sleep,
    trembling, and Everett was still smiling at him.
    The heating vent to Everett"s room had never been fully
    functional, but that wasn"t why Alex shook. For all their
    closeness as children, as teenagers, it had been years since
    he had seen Everett"s long bare limbs, or his stomach, or the
    lines of his back as he moved. It was like seeing him for the
    first time in his man"s body, patches of hair and unknown
    muscle, enough to make Alex close his hands tight, as
    though he was holding on to a scrap of wax paper again.
    Everett had always been tall, though he had only filled
    out toward the end of high school. His grace had been harder
    to achieve, but there was no sign that he"d ever been
    awkward as he bent and twisted and revealed almost every
    inch of himself as he dealt with his dirty clothes and grabbed
    his toothbrush to head down the hall.
    Everett was a ridiculously brave child grown into a
    ridiculously brave man, with a glow of faith in his eyes that
    even Alex had failed to dim for long. It had been there by
    that very window, and in a hospital psych ward, in Alex"s
    apartment amid a pile of trash and stupid convenience store
    crap, and after hearing stories of drugs and sex with people
    Alex couldn"t even remember.
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    A Wealth of Unsaid Words • R. Cooper

    “If I drug my mind….” If he stayed drugged was what he
    had meant, but Everett had understood. They had finished
    each other"s sentences often enough. “What if I’m no longer
    me, afterward? What if I won’t have anything more to say?”
    He had only gone on medication reluctantly the first time,
    and when he"d stopped it, the depression had been a
    hundred times worse than before. Endless weakness and
    apathy mixed with thoughts that had been anything but
    rational, repeating over and over behind his eyes what a
    disappointment he was, reminding him of how much time
    Everett and people like him had already wasted on him.
    His first thought, upon seeing Everett again after the
    awareness that he was alive, was the realization that the
    thoughts that had nearly destroyed him had nearly
    destroyed Everett too. But he hadn"t recognized until months
    later, while in therapy and on a high dose of lithium, that
    everyone had known that but him. It had been obvious to
    everyone else what he meant to Everett, but he had been
    blind to it.
    He had let himself fall for Everett"s tricks and never let
    himself wonder why Everett had used them. He was not used
    to thinking of Everett as scared, but he must have been to
    use such obvious ruses. He might still be. If Alex didn"t make
    a move first, he might find out. He might use pilfered liquor
    and the idea of kissing practice, but Everett, if he still
    wanted him, would try. Alex only wanted him more for his
    bravery.
    Even after Alex"s failed suicide, Everett had had to try,
    and Alex had let him. Their friendship, their bond, whatever
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    A Wealth of Unsaid Words • R. Cooper

    others chose to call the link between them, meant a lot to
    Everett. He might have said anything to keep Alex going, but
    Alex had wanted to believe him and hadn"t cared.
    “Write to me, even when I’m here. You’ll have something
    to say, I promise. And I’ll want to read it.” Everett would
    never say that it was when the words had stopped that he"d
    been worried enough to come to see him, that it was the lack
    of words that had made him break into Alex"s apartment and
    save his life. Everett had merely touched Alex"s shoulders
    and Alex"s face and sat holding his hand and asked him for
    letters , knowing that writing was breathing to him.
    “Everett, you are a blessing,” Alex murmured as Everett
    came back into the room, and Everett stopped. His
    expression was a combination of startled and embarrassed.
    Alex had paid him many compliments over the years, but
    never anything so close to the truth. Alex held still, and