Too Late To Claim Me
"It's not bad. It's just a lot, for someone your size."
"I'm not that small."
"You're exactly that small."
That got a real laugh out of him, and some of the tightness in my chest eased, just for a second. He seemed to accept the subject was closed, wriggling free to fetch his book, and the moment passed the way his moments always did, fast, and never quite forgotten.
I didn't sleep that night. I sat in my study with the light off, listening to the house settle, and thought about a boy who could hear a heartbeat through a shirt and a letter with a dead man's name on it, and wondered which one would find me first