It’d sent my heart hiccupping with questions.
I’d wanted to stop and talk without Jareth’s presence.
I wanted to know what’d happened to change his shadowy stare into one blazing with conviction.
I wanted to check his head was okay, that his memories weren’t too crippling, that he was still him. We needed to talk—to finally have a conversation about all the things we’d either ignored or not been brave enough to broach, but he’d just shook his head, pressed a final kiss to my skin, and guided me into the ivy-covered mansion where so much badness had happened.
The strange thing was...walking through the foyer to join Jareth in the games room had felt different. The house wasn’t as heavy. The walls not as cloying. There were cracks appearing. Cracks brought about by a cold-hearted brother who’d returned, somehow reminding the trapped brother to breathe. To step out of his prison and see that he could survive, after all.
Jareth grabbed two of the heavy glass tumblers and came toward us. “Here. Seeing as there are no drugs, this will have to do.” He peered at the redness on Kas’s temple from where he punched him. “That hurt?”
Kas shrugged. “My head hasn’t exactly felt the best for a while.”
“In that case, have a drink. Alcohol makes most things better.”
Kas cracked a smile. “If that was the case, I would’ve stayed drunk.”
Jareth turned serious, their bond sharing things I wasn’t privy to. “Not gonna lie, I came close to drinking myself into oblivion too.” His head tilted a little, the cords in his neck stark with a fine line of ink creeping out of his collar. “I know the reasons I stopped. But why did you?” He handed the glass to Kas, his jaw clenched with his own past.
Kas took the heavy tumbler, swirling the generous pour inside.
I waited for him to either deflect, refuse to reply, or plain just shut down. The Kas I’d grown to know didn’t do well talking about the past. I’d accepted he might never be ready to—
“I stopped because it was either death by liquor or death by starvation.” Inhaling roughly, Kas shocked me stiff as he continued, “It was year three, I think? Three years I lasted on my own, not knowing who I was or why I was alone, eating my way through a house filled with food. But then...the food was almost gone. I was forced to make a choice—leave or figure out a way to make more.” He kept staring into the alcohol in his hand. “I didn’t know the first thing about gathering or growing. So...I ignored it for as long as I could. Each time I’d finish a packet or empty the last can, I’d be faced with a decision I couldn’t make. I didn’t know why I couldn’t leave, but if I couldn’t leave, then how could I stay? How could I stay if I didn’t know how to replenish everything that I’d eaten?”
He sighed and raised the glass to his lips, taking a small sip. “The night I took my first drink was the first night I was able to relax and not worry about a future I didn’t even know if I wanted. I drank myself into a stupor, woke up the next morning, and did it all over again. I grew addicted to the numbness, the peace from horrors I couldn’t even remember. All spring and summer, I kept drinking, ignoring the fact that my diet had become stale crackers and copious amounts of vodka. I didn’t care I lost weight and grew weak because I had plenty of alcohol. So many more bottles than packets and cans.”
He took another sip, his voice haunting and cold at the same time. “It was so easy to continue drinking, sleeping, and forgetting. And that was the kicker...I kept waiting to figure out why I liked forgetting when I’d already forgotten. I didn’t know my name, my family, or my history. For five years, I forgot about you, about Storymaker, about everything. But fuck, that dark shit stayed inside me, taunting me to remember. Alcohol helped.” He laughed under his breath. “It helped way too much. It got to the point I couldn’t function without being blind fucking drunk.”
Jareth handed me the second glass, his attention still on Kas. “What snapped you out of it?”
Kas shrugged, bringing his glass to his lips again. His eyes met mine, crystal clear with clarity instead of shadows. A clarity that was new and oh so wonderful, even while he willingly waded through his past. “I chose to live. By the end of winter, I’d almost run out of alcohol, and I’d definitely run out of food. I was starving all the time. I resorted to eating cockroaches and whatever animal I could get my hands on. By spring, I’d had enough. I wasn’t ready to die even though it would’ve been so, so easy. I turned to books instead of booze. I suffered withdrawal for a while—looking at the same bottle you just opened, salivating like an addict for just one sip. But I wanted to keep those last few bottles for the day when I couldn’t do it anymore.”