“Too blunt?”
“No, I, uh...I just wasn’t expecting that.”
“Well, do you want to?” I tilt my head to the side, watching his reaction.
“Yes.” He blushes, then begins to fidget again. “I do, but maybe...maybe I should tell you first. I mean, tell you about me.”
“Do you think you’re ready?” I’d planned to follow his lead to some extent, but now I’m wondering if he’s forcing himself to move too fast, and I don’t want to upset him again. “I meant it when I said I wasn’t going to push you anymore. We can just sit here and cuddle if you want. We can talk about something else. We can just fuck the night away if that’s your preference. I don’t want you to talk to me about your past until you’re ready.”
“I don’t know if I’ll ever be ready,” he says, “but I think I’m as ready now as I’ll ever be. I figured out how to start, anyway.”
“It’s up to you.” I gnaw at my lip, realizing I’m forcing him to make a choice when I told him I was going to do that for him. This one though...he’s got to make it on his own. I can only encourage him.
Rocco puts his head back on my tits, and I start the waiting game again. It doesn’t take as long, but when he does speak, my heart stops.
“I was seven years old the first time I saw daylight.”
Chapter 9—Rocco
There. I did it. I got the first sentence out.
I also felt Casey’s body tense when I said the words, and I have no idea what she’s thinking. I can’t bring myself to look her in the eye,
so I decide to ask a question.
“Did you know there are people who live in old subway tunnels?”
“What?”
“Subway tunnels. Old ones that have never been used for trains. On the west side of the city, there are a bunch of them. They were supposed to be an offshoot of the main transit system that goes around downtown. It was built in the sixties, but the funding got cut, and it was never completed. People live there. Or at least, people used to. Not sure if they still do or not.”
“Oh. Um...okay. I guess that isn’t much different than homeless people living under a bridge or in tent cities.”
“More like the tent cities but underground. I mean, not big cities or good cities but a lot of people. A lot of people living under the streets on the far side of town near the power plant and sewage treatment plant. You could smell the sewage all the time, so eventually, you just get used to the smell and don’t even notice it. A documentary was made about it.”
“About our city?”
“No, not here. I think it was about people in New York back in the seventies maybe. A bunch of people lived below the streets, and no one knew they were there. The entrance was sealed off, but you could get there through the old steam tunnels underneath the power plant. There isn’t any light down there. It took a long time to get out, and the steam tunnels smelled even worse.”
“Are you saying you lived in one of those places?”
“Yeah.”
“Was that before or after the group home?”
“Before.”
“You mean, that’s where you lived with your parents?”
“Yeah.”
Casey flexes her arms around me, and I feel her lips press against the top of my head.
“Can you tell me what it was like?” she asks quietly.
“So, um...it’s hard to describe.” I rub my cheek against her breasts and sigh. “I was young, so my memories of that place aren’t very clear. It was always dark. We had candles and some flashlights, but batteries were hard to come by. People made fires in barrel drums for heat, but I wasn’t allowed to go out of our house.”
“Your house?”