In the breath-long space between question and response, he braced himself against the prospect of an affirmation or a negation with an obvious lie in it, and what that would mean. Because, once he asked, the fact that it almost made a kind of sense crept up on him. The kid showing up like this, his familiarity with the house, his mention of parties, his unpredictability, his overall strangeness: frame it right, and parallels appeared to some of the people he knew who’d been abused at some early point in their lives. He may have accepted, as best he could, that Courtland was an abusive piece of shit, but this would be a whole new level to absorb. Yet the idea of his having a part in some basement child sex cabal (the scenario his head chose in spite of having no evidence for it) felt squarely within the realm of possibility.
Jude’s laugh, weird and reflexive and open, with no discernible shadow of denial, came as a relief. Even excising all lurid, imaginary details, the thought of his father doing anything with a man so close to Near’s own age was distressing in a way he preferred not to explore. Better, somehow, if Memory Courtland’s proclivities remained contained to teenage girls and fits of violence. He was already inured to that.
“Good,” he answered, a single flat syllable. Then, to the sleep question, “Eventually,” with a slight bristling at the impression that Jude was trying to get rid of him that he battened down for the sake of non-antagonization. He didn’t reclaim the cutting board.
“So, what would have been different if Courtland opened the door?”
Jude’s laugh, weird and reflexive and open, with no discernible shadow of denial, came as a relief. Even excising all lurid, imaginary details, the thought of his father doing anything with a man so close to Near’s own age was distressing in a way he preferred not to explore. Better, somehow, if Memory Courtland’s proclivities remained contained to teenage girls and fits of violence. He was already inured to that.
“Good,” he answered, a single flat syllable. Then, to the sleep question, “Eventually,” with a slight bristling at the impression that Jude was trying to get rid of him that he battened down for the sake of non-antagonization. He didn’t reclaim the cutting board.
“So, what would have been different if Courtland opened the door?”