Don't Leave Me Here Alone

Chapter One

The first time he saw Adam Parrish was on the side of the road. This was how it had begun: a high school student had been walking his bike up the last hill into town, clearly headed the same place they were. He'd worn the Aglionby uniform. Although, as they grew closer, Riah had seen it was threadbare in a way school uniforms simply couldn't manage in a single year's use. Which had meant they were secondhand. His sleeves were pushed up to just past his elbows, and his forearms were wiry; the thin muscles picked out in stark relief. But Riah's attention had stuck on his hands. Lovely, boyish hands with slender fingers, gaunt and long like his unfamiliar face. He had looked like he'd been pulled out of a sepia photograph taken in the Civil War, all dusty shades and sharp angles. Except for his piercing blue eyes that Riah couldn't place the shade of. Sky? Robin's egg? Cornflower?

"Who's that?" Gansey had asked, and Riah hadn't answered.

He'd just kept hanging out the window, watching. As they passed, Adam's expression had been all contradictions: intense and wary, resigned and resilient, defeated and defiant.

Zachariah Carnelian hadn't known anything about who Adam was then and, if possible, he'd known even less about who he himself was. But as they drove away from the boy with the bicycle, this was how it had begun: Riah leaning back against his seat and closing his eyes and sending up a simple, inexplicable, desperate prayer to God:

Please.

Riah wasn't who he'd been before his own family had ostracised him for a desire, a sexuality, that he couldn't control. And, over time, he'd allowed the anger and resentment burning in his gut to destroy and blacken and harden every soft thing in him. He had made himself a snake, and the mere presence of him in a room warned everyone to back the hell up or deal with the venom.

He had made it so no one and nothing would hurt him ever again. And so he decided he hated Adam Parrish. Then he decided he hated the boy even more when Gansey decided he liked him. Decided he hated him more and more, even as they became friends, even as Riah realised he didn't hate him at all. He loved him.

⁂

The last time he saw Adam Parrish was on a Tuesday evening. They'd spent the weekend together. Adam had been recovering from second year midterms, and Riah had been helping his boyfriend as best he could. They hadn't been alone for quite some time, certainly not for a full weekend. Adam had been drifting away from him, lost on a sea of midterms and essays and internships and something he wasn't telling Riah. Some secret that was somehow making him smaller and less Adam. Riah wanted to keep him at home and keep him safe. He wanted to hug Adam and take away whatever it was that was insidiously eating away at him.

He watched Adam drive away, instead. Because Adam was more than a secret, and was more than Riah's love for him, and he deserved all the freedom and space that he wanted.

Adam had lifted the visor of his motorcycle helmet and waved a hand. His laughter had echoed over the yard at something Riah had shouted to him.

Riah had felt a surge of love so strong, he could taste it. All the soft parts of himself he'd tried so hard to destroy were being rediscovered every time Adam smiled that easy smile at him, every time he ran his fingers along Riah's tattoos or talked about the things he was learning at college. He had watched until the motorcycle disappeared around the bend of the driveway. Then he'd sat down on the stairs of the porch and tried to ignore the nagging worry in his gut that something was wrong. Gansey had come over and joined him with a beer, after a while. They hadn't spoken. They'd just watched the sunset as they drank the beer.

The next time they spoke, Adam was breaking up with him.

⁂

Two years later, dawn was staining the horizon when Riah went to check the mail. He'd already run his rounds watering all the plants in the quaint little farmhouse outside Alexandria, Virginia. He was tired and aching, desperately looking forward to his coffee that he thought should be just about finished brewing by now. Cold breath mushroomed around his face and he rubbed his hands together for warmth. It was nearing the end of November, and the most recent cold snap was becoming less of a snap and more of an ongoing condition. Frost licked across the grass, shimmering in the lights around the yard but Riah knew it'd melt away as soon as the sun rose to its full height. Sweat was drying uncomfortably on his back in the chill, and he shivered slightly as he trekked up the driveway.