In The Sight of These Hills (Dolan Twins)

Ultramarine

Chapter 32: Ultramarine

"In fear I hurried this way and that. I had the taste of blood and chocolate in my mouth, the one as hateful as the other."

-From Annette Curtis Klause's Blood and Chocolate

Separation anxiety was a weird thing. It could be categorized as the refusal or reluctance to sleep away from home or to go to sleep without the attachment figures nearby, nightmares involving themes of being abandoned, or the refusal to leave home, school, work, or another place because of fear of separation.

Grayson was dealing with some severe separation anxiety, even if it was of his own making. He walked and felt all of the dry ground beneath his bare feet. He knew he probably had blood on him, dried on his face, his shirt, his joggers, but he didn't care. There was nothing besides the cold wind and the animals that he could hear fleeing wildly away from him when they caught his scent on the wind and his movement.

He tried concentrating on anything besides being home. He sat down on the ground and thought of the other part of himself as the sun began to set. He was thinking about how he could control it and if it was even possible. He thought of the full moon and what would happen if he didn't do, or couldn't do, something by Friday. He imagined the thing that had attacked him suddenly and he closed his eyes for a moment as the snarl ripped through his mind, echoing. He got up when he realized that wasn't such a great idea.

Grayson knew what he was feeling, the raw all-consuming paranoia, heart ache, and anger that was rushing through his body, as he walked the thick woods.

He wasn't getting anywhere.

It had been two days. It was Sunday evening, dropping quickly into Sunday night.

He felt something pulling at him, like an animal might feel when it didn't have the option to leave. It was there when he ran through the woods away from Ethan Friday night.

He felt it when he tore into the deer, and as he ran from the bright yellow of the blinding flashlights. He felt it as he attempted sleep, attempted to bathe in the freezing pond that was in the center of the woodlands, but his thoughts would always turn to his brother.

Was Ethan okay? Was he eating enough? Was he taking his pain medication like he was supposed to? Was he safe?

He knew what it was. He knew it every second that he was breathing, every second that he couldn't see him, couldn't talk to him, couldn't smell him, couldn't touch him, couldn't hug him, it was tearing him completely apart. He needed Ethan there with him. They had never gone through anything alone, and this was no different.

He had never felt so alone in his whole entire life.

Grayson clenched his jaw and rubbed at his eyes. He retracted his claws when he was at a point in the woods, the blood dark and crusted under the nailbeds, and he let the tears stream down his face. He didn't want to cry but it seemed like his mind-exhausted, torn up- wasn't giving him that option.

The sun was setting again. It was splashing everything into shades of brilliant gold, light salmon pink, and vivid orange. He leaned his forehead against the hard bark of an oak tree and breathed. He let his fingers go against the hard bark, against the feeling of emptiness in his throat. He took one step, and then two steps.

He collapsed in the leaves and looked up at the blueness of the sky. It was quickly changing, or maybe it was him who was quickly changing. He had no idea.