JC Coldwell's Arc

Chapter 4 of 9

The strangers' thoughts still rang in JC's skull when Hal walked him out of the apothecary. Hal wanted to help, but his worry made the noise worse. So JC did what he always did when the world got too loud. He went to the one room that stayed quiet. Robert Hayne's workshop sat above the shops, warm and cluttered with bolts of soft cloth. JC had known him since they were kids in South Carolina. Hayne didn't look up when JC came in. He stood over a length of pink silk, frowning, holding it against a swatch of pale green. "Honey, tell me these hate each other," Hayne said. "I've been staring so long I can't see straight. Sit. Talk at me. Lord, I need a voice that isn't mine." JC sat. And here, for once, nothing pressed on him. He listened for Hayne's mind and found almost nothing. A hum about thread. A flicker about lunch. No hidden fear, no secret dread waiting behind the man's smile. It was the closest thing to silence JC ever got from another person. So he let himself talk. "It's Hal," JC said. His shoulders dropped for the first time all day. "I kissed him back today. I actually meant it." "Now that," Hayne said, holding up the green, "is progress." JC kept going. He couldn't stop. He told Hayne how quiet Hal's mind felt, the only one that never hurt. How Hal laughed with his whole body. How his ears drooped when he was scared JC would leave. JC heard his own voice go soft and open, and he let it. There was no one here to use it against him. "You've got it bad," Hayne said, smiling now. He set down the silk. "I've never once heard you talk like this. Not about anybody." "Because it's safe here," JC admitted. "You're not sitting there judging me. I don't have to guard anything." Hayne's smile shifted. He picked the silk back up, casual. "Safe because I'm easy to be around," he said. "Or safe because you think there's nothing much going on up here?" JC opened his mouth to deny it. He couldn't. That was exactly why he'd come. "It's alright, honey." Hayne's drawl stayed light, but he didn't quite meet JC's eyes. "Folks have thought that my whole life." He held the two fabrics up again. "But look. You'll gush your whole heart out to me because I'm the empty room. You still can't say one word of it to that boy's face." The silence in the workshop stopped feeling like rest. It felt like hiding. JC stood. His hands were steady now. "The green," he said. "Keep the green." Then he went to the door. He had practiced being open in the one place it cost him nothing. Now he had to go say the same words to Hal, out loud, where it did.