Winter Oranges (37 page)

Ben debated, and Jason sat back, waiting. “I’ll agree,” he said, “with one stipulation.”

“Anything.”

“I want you to leave written instructions for Natalie and your lawyer and Sheriff Ross, and whoever else you can think of.”

“What kind of instructions?”

“That if anything happens to you, they destroy the globe.”

Jason’s heart jumped into his throat. “What?” he asked, hoping he’d misunderstood. “That would kill you.”

“I know.”

“No!” He gripped Ben’s arms, unsure if he wanted to shake some sense into him or pull him close and never let go. “No, I won’t agree to that.”

“Then you can’t come inside.”

“Ben—”

“If something happens to you, it’ll be my fault, Jason. You’ll be gone and it’ll be my fault, and I’ll be lost. Without you, I’ll never be able to find the light again—”

“Stop! I don’t want to hear this—”

“No, listen to me. I can’t go back to the way things were before. I don’t want to go back to being alone, not when I know now how it feels to be with you.”

“I’ll leave instructions,” Jason rushed to assure him. “I’ll tell them to get my cousins together, and you’ll be able to find out who can see you. Then you’ll have somebody—”

“But it won’t be you!”

“But . . . but . . .” Jason stammered for a compromise. “Even with me gone, you could keep on living. Somebody else might have better luck than me. They might know how to get you out.” He tried to pull Ben close, but Ben pushed him away.

“Stop! Don’t you see? Even if one of your cousins can see me, even if one of them cares enough to be my friend, I’ll never have this again!” He put one hand on each side of Jason’s face and leaned close to meet his eyes. “I’d rather die knowing you loved me than go on for an eternity knowing I killed you.”

A lump rose in Jason’s throat, and he pulled Ben close. He understood Ben’s request, and yet he couldn’t bear the thought of granting it. “Let’s talk about it later, please. We have all the time in the world on my side of the globe. We can fight about it there. But not here.” He held Ben tighter, rocking him and kissing his curls. “We have so little time here. I don’t want to spend it arguing.”

Ben didn’t pull away, but he didn’t relax in Jason’s arms either. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.” He laid Ben back on the bed again. “We’ll figure something out, I promise. But not now.” He ran his hand down Ben’s side, wanting to see Ben relax, but also wanting to do whatever he could to convince Ben to allow him another visit in the future. He teased his fingers up the inside of Ben’s thigh and brushed his lips over Ben’s in a gentle kiss. “I’d rather spend what time we have left making you smile. It’s Christmas Eve, after all.”

Ben’s expression softened, and he put his arms around Jason’s neck. “How much time do we have left?”

That was a good question. Jason glanced around, but of course there was no clock in the cabin. The light outside hadn’t changed. The fire hadn’t burned down. There was absolutely no way of knowing how much time had passed.

“I don’t know.” He didn’t want to wake up, but he turned his attention inward, feeling for some awareness of himself lying on the couch in his living room. Searching for some thread that told him how much time had passed, and yet hoping he didn’t rouse himself before their allotted time was up.

He sensed something—not a physical sensation of being on his couch or holding the globe or being asleep, but something . . .

A noise.

“I think my alarm’s going off.”

Ben sat up, pushing Jason off him, his eyes wide with alarm. “Then you need to wake up.”

Jason shook his head, trying to concentrate on that incessant beeping. Or was it a pounding? “I’ve never slept through the alarm before.”

“But you were only coming in for twenty minutes at a time. This time, you set it for fifty.” He chewed his lip with worry. “I’m going to go check.”

He went still, his focus drifting inward as he projected himself outside the globe, but only for a moment. He popped back into motion, looking more alarmed than ever. “Jason, there’s something terrible happening! You have to wake up! You have to—”

Crash
!

Jason sat bolt upright on the couch as his front door flew open. He was sleep-addled, but adrenaline kicked in hard when Dylan and Sheriff Ross both came barreling into his living room.

“What the hell?”

“Jason!” Dylan grabbed him and yanked him off the couch. “Jesus Christ, I thought you were dead.”

“I was sleeping!” He had just enough awareness to check his pants, but it seemed that this time, his orgasm in the globe hadn’t resulted in ejaculation in the real world. At least he didn’t have a drying cum stain between his legs. He tucked the snow globe protectively against his side, hoping Dylan wouldn’t see it. He caught a glimpse of Ben standing wide-eyed in the corner of the room. Dylan and Sheriff Ross watched him, their expressions dark with worry. “I was napping, that’s all.”

“He’s okay!” the sheriff yelled at somebody outside. “Just hang back for now.”

“Who are you talking to?” Jason pushed Dylan away and went to the open front door. An ambulance sat next to Sheriff Ross’s and Dylan’s cars, its emergency lights flashing. Two paramedics stood halfway up the drive, looking incredibly uncomfortable. “What the hell, Dylan?”

And in that instant, the pain hit, like a knife stabbing into the base of his skull.

“Shit!” Jason doubled over, clamping his hand to his head. “How long was I in there?”

“You need to go to the hospital.”

“No, I don’t. It’s just a headache.”

“Jason, you tried to kill yourself—”

“
What
?” He stared up at Dylan in shock, his head pounding. “I was napping!”

“I’ve been pounding on the door for twenty minutes! I could hear your alarm going off.”

“Exactly! I wouldn’t have set my alarm if I was trying to kill myself, would I?”

“I could see you through the window and you weren’t moving! And then there’s this.” Dylan held up the bottle of sleeping tablets Jason had left on the coffee table. “What was I supposed to think?”

The pain in Jason’s head spiked again, and he winced, gritting his teeth. “I’m sorry I scared you, but now you know I’m fine. You can go.”

Dylan and Sheriff Ross glanced at each other, looking apprehensive, as if they shared a guilty secret.

“What?” Jason practically yelled. His head was killing him. He needed a handful of ibuprofen, a hot shower, and then his bed, not a circus in his living room.

“Jason,” Dylan said, his voice low and excruciatingly reasonable, “you need to let us take you to the hospital.”

“No, I don’t. I’m fine.” Except he wasn’t fine. Not only did his head hurt, but he was starting to feel dizzy. The floor seemed to be tilting slightly under his feet. “Now that you know I wasn’t trying to kill myself, you may as well go.”

“I’m not going anywhere. Not until you agree to come with us. And not until . . .” Dylan licked his lips nervously. “Not until you give me that globe.”

Jason’s heart burst into overdrive. He hugged the globe protectively against him, blinking against the black and red that was beginning to cloud his vision. “I can’t do that. I’ll never do that! I want you to leave—”

“Jason,” Sheriff Ross said, “you’re not well. Anyone can see that.”

At that moment, it was true. The world shifted, Jason’s equilibrium suddenly changing poles, and he fell to one knee, cradling his head in one hand, the globe in the other. “I’m not crazy!”

The sheriff and Dylan both came toward him, vying for space in the narrow hallway, and Jason scrambled to his feet and retreated the only way he could—out the open front door. He fell down the veranda steps and scrambled to his feet, backing out of their reach. “I don’t need your help!” He staggered through the snow toward the paramedics, his feet burning from the cold. He was vaguely aware of Ben following him too, his eyes dark with worry, his lips moving in a desperate, silent plea. “I won’t let them take you.”

“Sir?” one of the paramedics asked, clearly thinking Jason was talking to them. “Do you need assistance?”

“No! You can leave. I’m fine.”

He’d reached the loose rocks of his drive. They were warmer than the snow had been, but painfully jagged, shifting precariously beneath his bare feet, but he kept moving, angling between the ambulance and the sheriff’s car, not knowing where he was going except away from Dylan. Away from the sheriff. Away from the pain that seemed to be splitting his head in two. Ben stood off to the side, wringing his hands, his image flickering fitfully in the strobing red and blue lights of the ambulance.

“Jason, please,” Dylan pleaded, following him. “This is for your own good. Let them take you to the hospital.”

“I don’t need a hospital!”

“Okay,” Dylan soothed. “Okay. If you give me the globe, I’ll tell the paramedics to go away.”

“You can’t take it!” The pain hit again, and Jason fell to his knees, his head spinning. “You can’t take Ben! He’d be alone, don’t you see?”

Dylan and Sheriff Ross traded another knowing glance, and Jason’s anger surged. He pushed himself to his feet, fought to stay standing, to keep from swaying as the ground buckled. “I’m not crazy!”

“You may not be crazy,” Dylan said, slowly stepping toward him, his hands held up, “but you’re not well, Jason. You have to see that.”

“Why can’t you go away and leave us alone?”

“‘Us’? Jason, there is no ‘us.’ There’s only you.” Dylan reached for him. “If you’ll let me help you—”

“Get away from me!” Jason pushed him away with his right hand, holding the globe cradled against him with his left. “Just because you can’t see him—”

“There’s nobody to see!”

“—doesn’t mean he’s not real!”

Dylan reached for him again. Jason tried to push him away, but he had only one free hand, his footing was shifty and unsteady, and his head was pounding. He felt dampness on his upper lip, tasted blood on his tongue. He wiped his nose, and stared down in surprise at the red mess on his fingers. When had he started bleeding?

“Jason, let us help you.”

“I don’t need your help.”

The ground tilted dangerously beneath his feet again. Dylan caught him, and Jason pushed him away a third time. But this time, Dylan hadn’t been reaching for him. He’d been reaching for the globe. He wrenched it from Jason’s hand. A few yards away, Ben quit wringing his hands, only to clap them over his mouth.

“Give it back!” Jason screamed.

“This is all in your head. If you’ll come to the hospital—”

“Fuck you!” He threw the words at Dylan, loathing him more at that moment than he ever had in their ten years of friendship. “I hate you!”

“I know,” Dylan said, suddenly not yelling at all, but lowering his voice into something heartbreakingly gentle. “But I love you.”

And before Jason could react at all, Dylan raised the snow globe over his head. Jason knew what he was going to do.

“No!”

But he couldn’t get there in time. He had one final glimpse of Ben, his eyes wide with horror before Dylan slammed the globe down onto the rocky driveway. It landed with a sickening thud, and Ben’s spectral image winked out of existence.

“No!” Jason lunged for it, falling to his hands and knees as his equilibrium shifted and the pain surged again in his head. He had to crawl the last couple of feet.

The globe seemed to be intact, and yet Ben was nowhere to be seen. Jason reached for the globe, his hands shaking. He felt dampness on his fingertips as he turned it to look for damage.

An inch away from the globe’s apex, a single star-like fracture marred the glass. One point of the star had spread, the crack arching toward the globe’s base. Water oozed slowly through the jagged fracture.

“Ben!” Jason screamed, looking around, waiting for Ben to appear. “Where are you?”

The flashing lights from the ambulance on one side and the sheriff’s car on the other continued splashing over them—red, blue, red, blue—and a sob tore from Jason’s chest. Losing Ben was more than he could take.

“Jason,” Dylan said, gently putting his hand on Jason’s shoulder. “It’s over.”

“You killed him!” But just as he said it, Ben winked back into existence.

“Ben!”

But Jason’s relief was short-lived. Ben was clearly in trouble. He was screaming, his image flickering fitfully as he fought to project himself outside the globe through whatever pain consumed him. Jason turned the key on reflex. “Ben, are you okay?”

Ben’s image flickered as he doubled over, falling to the ground, reaching his hand toward Jason. “Help me.”

And then he was gone again.

“No! Oh God, Ben.” Jason cradled the globe, feeling more helpless than ever, his mind racing.

“Jason,” Dylan said again, reaching toward the globe. “Let me have it.”

“Mr. Walker,” Sheriff Ross started to say, “if you’ll let us take you—”

“Get away from me!”

They each backed up a bit, stepping close to each other to confer, and Jason hunched over the globe, trying to think. Trying to come up with a plan. The words etched into the base of the globe seemed to taunt him.
SHAKE GLOBE
. The first two letters may have been scratched almost to the point of being illegible, but the simple instructions brought tears to Jason’s eyes. The last thing he wanted was to shake it now. He needed to get inside. He needed to save Ben. But the only way to do that was to fall asleep, and that wasn’t possible. Even if Dylan and the sheriff and the paramedics left him in peace, he didn’t have time. Whatever was happening to Ben was happening now, as the world fell apart on Jason’s rocky driveway. There was no time to waste. But what could he do?