Total pages in book: 110
Estimated words: 103231 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 516(@200wpm)___ 413(@250wpm)___ 344(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 103231 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 516(@200wpm)___ 413(@250wpm)___ 344(@300wpm)
He’d been nervous when he’d entered the kitchen. The food had already been sitting on the table and Magnus and I had taken our seats, leaving the chair between us open for Aleks. But instead of sitting right away, he’d stood quietly next to Magnus’s chair until Magnus had invited him to sit, moving the chair back from the table for him. We’d ended up making roasted chicken with several side dishes to choose from. But instead of taking what he wanted, Aleks had sat unmoving in front of his plate. When Magnus and I had offered him the dishes to choose from, he’d sent Magnus a questioning look for each one. I’d attributed his strange behavior to nerves and the fact that it was Magnus’s house. But he’d taken it a step further and had sent Magnus a questioning look after every single spoonful of food he’d put on his plate.
It had hit Magnus and me at nearly the same time and we’d ended up exchanging a look of confusion and horror.
Because somehow Aleks had inserted Magnus into a role that Parks had likely played in the past. My brother looked to Magnus for approval for everything he did. If I asked Aleks if he wanted to watch a movie, he would look at Magnus and wait. When I bought Aleks some clothes so he’d have something besides the single outfit he’d been wearing at Parks’s house, he would actually ask Magnus what he was supposed to wear that day. When I began suggesting activities to get us out of the house, Aleks asked Magnus for permission.
I’d been horrified by the whole thing, but Magnus had reminded me that just because we’d gotten Aleks out of the ugly world he’d been forced to live in for more than half of his life, it didn’t mean he would miraculously let go of the routines that had been instilled in him…the routines that had ensured his safety. Magnus, for his part, had been careful in how he’d responded to Aleks. He’d given Aleks just enough direction to satisfy his need for approval, but enough choice to allow him to begin to understand what it was like to make his own decisions.
After a few days of being cooped up in the house, Magnus and I had tried taking Aleks to see some of the highlights Seattle had to offer, specifically the marketplace where there were numerous vendors selling beautiful bouquets of flowers, even during the heart of the Pacific Northwest winter. But Aleks had quickly become overwhelmed by the crowds which, by marketplace standards were pretty low, and we’d had to scrap those outings. The only place Aleks had seemed to marginally relax was around Ace after we’d gone to visit the horse at his new stable just north of the city. Magnus had taught Aleks how to brush and tack up the horse and had even managed to coax him into riding the giant animal, though all he’d done was walk him around a large indoor arena.
Another area we’d quickly learned was foreign to Aleks was the world of technology. He had no idea how to use the smartphone I bought for him and he’d looked at my laptop and tablet like they were from another world. I’d tried explaining the internet to him, but he’d become flustered and said he’d never need to know something like that. And while he could read, write and speak English well enough, other rudimentary skills like math were foreign to him. The one thing he clung to besides his daily visits with Ace were his flowers. I’d easily spent a couple of thousand dollars to buy all kinds of fresh flowers, vases and potted plants because they brought such pleasure to Aleks’s face. And they were the only things he would talk to me about without any kind of reservation…or approval.
Magnus’s house had ended up looking and smelling like a flower shop, which made sense since I’d cleaned out several of the florists in the neighborhood. When we’d run out of surfaces for all the stunning arrangements Aleks had created, Magnus had started delivering them to various friends and family. I myself hadn’t seen anyone besides Ronan and Memphis, since I hadn’t wanted to leave Aleks and we’d known guests would stress my brother out, but Magnus had gone to visit with Matty on several occasions after we’d arrived home.
“How’s he doing?” Magnus asked as he came up behind me and put his arms around my waist. I’d been standing at the front window for nearly an hour waiting for the cab that would bring my parents to Magnus’s house for their reunion with Aleks.
“He wanted to be alone,” I said as I settled my hand on Magnus’s where they were resting on my stomach. I’d expected our relationship to cool off with everything that had happened in the past week, but our need for one another had only strengthened and every waking moment we weren’t spending with Aleks or Magnus was with his family, we were in each other’s arms. I was still haunted by how close I’d come to losing Magnus that day in Parks’s study. The guilt of my actions had consumed me, but whenever I voiced my apology to the man who’d almost lost his life because of me, he’d show a rare display of anger and remind me that it had been his decision to follow me into that house that day.