"He's gonna be fine. Go to your room, I'll get you when we're done."
Peter's heart begins to jackhammer. He wants to get to his feet, to run for the front door or maybe the fire escape like he tried to earlier, but his legs are still jelly; oxygen is still making its way into his bloodstream. He is struck by the insane urge to beg the girls to stay, but he immediately quells it. They're just kids. They can' t protect him. They shouldn't have to.
So instead he sits up as tall as he can manage while still wheezing slightly, and he watches the girls head back to their room, casting little glances over their shoulders at him as they go.
Then he and Skip are alone.
Peter wants to not be here. He wants to be anywhere else. He would even take the Arlington's basement, or the sweltering bottom bunk at the halfway house. But here is where he is, so even though he is still gasping he forces his mouth closed, sets his jaw, and looks Skip in the eye. For a second, Skip just stands over him, gazing down, expression unreadable.
All at once, Skip's face crumples. He follows the motion with his body, collapsing into the chair across from Peter and folding in on himself, his face in his hands, his shoulders heaving.
Peter is stunned. It takes him a moment to realize Skip is crying.
"Oh, God," Skip sobs, "oh, God, Peter, I'm so sorry."
In his chair, Peter freezes. Of the many scenarios that pelted rapid-fire through his brain in the moment between Skip dismissing the girls and dropping into the chair, this was not one of them. His fingers instantly start to feel tingly again, but this time it has nothing to do with lack of oxygen.
When Peter doesn ' t say anything, Skip lifts his head. His eyes are swollen, his cheeks glistening. The tears are real.
"I'm sick, Peter," he says. "I have a sickness. I've always known it but I' ve never… God, I've always fought against it. Everything I've done in the past ten years … everything I ' ve done my whole life has been to make sure I never hurt anyone because of this illness and now… what I did to you last night. I'll never forgive myself, Peter. I'll never—oh, God."
He buries his face again, wracked by another sob.
Peter starts to shake. He feels numb and distant, but he can't tell if it's because of the oxygen returning to his brain or because of what's happening in front of him. His mouth is dry, but he opens it anyway.
"Why… why did you do that?"
Sniffling, Skip looks up. He shakes his head.
"I don't know," he whispers. "I didn't want to. I didn't mean to. I' ve always been in control, Peter, you have to believe me, I've always… but with you I just… some monster took over and… it was like I had no say over my own actions. Like I couldn't help myself."
(You're different. You're better.)
Peter swallows. swallowing sand.
It
feels
like
"Then I… I should go. Just send me back, just—"
Peter cuts himself off. At the thought of going back to his social worker and asking for a new home, phantom heat rises on the back of his neck. His stomach feels too small, shrunken and empty.
No one else wants him. It's why he ended up in the halfway house in the first place.
Skip seems to be thinking along the same lines. He shakes his head.
"Peter," he says hoarsely, "Peter, please. You can't say anything. What about Ned? school?"
What
The shaking increases.
"I don't think—"
about
your
"What about the girls, Peter?"
Peter closes his mouth.
"You know what it's like," Skip goes on. "You've seen how bad the foster system can be. I'm the only one who was ever able to help them, if they get tossed to some… indifferent fucking family like they've had before, they' re never going to make it. And you know it could happen. Look where they sent you."
Peter has a flash of a rolled-up magazine. For just a second he imagines someone using it to hit Lily. Or Emma. The idea is so repugnant it makes his stomach lurch. "The world is such a cruel place," says Skip. "Such a cruel place. No one wants a bunch of broken kids. The system will chew all of you up and spit you back up, and it doesn't care, I've seen it, it doesn't. But I do. I do, Peter, I swear."
For the second time in ten minutes, Skip does something totally unexpected. He slides out of his chair, and he gets on his knees in front of Peter. Peter wants to flee. He wants, at the very least, to push back, to get out of reach. But Skip takes his hand before Peter can, holds it firmly.
(That shiver…)
" Please forgive me. Please forgive me, Peter. Please don ' t ruin everything we've built here for one mistake. Think of your future. Think of the girls. Please."
Peter doesn't know what to do. He has never seen an adult act like this, never seen a grown man sob and beg on his knees. These tears aren't like the grief tears Ben sometimes had. They ' re frightening, but in a completely different way.
"Are you… gonna do it again?"
Skip shakes his head frantically.
"Never,"he says."Never, Peter. You have my word." (You are allowed to defend yourself, Peter.)
It's just a whisper. Peter can barely even hear it.
The whisper is wrong. There is no choice here. There are no options. There is only one route, because if Peter is responsible for anything happening to the girls, he will never forgive himself. And was it really so bad? Compared to boiling in the interminable heat and lying in the dark next to the clanking washing machine and listening to Felipe sob and never having anything to eat, was it really so bad? All that happened was that Skip laid on top of him and—
(moved)
—really, compared to everything else —compared to what could happen to the girls—is that so bad?
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