Chapter 1

Zane discovers a secret

We had always talked outside in the snow. Asher constantly insisted that we did. Something about how our words and secrets would be carried away by the winds; how the snow would cover our tracks, the evidence of our presences.

 

The snow itself was bitter, such a harsh unmerciful thing that flickered across my numbing face. I had never liked the snow and my only judgment of our frigid third partner was that she was unforgiving. Her angry words shrieked in the violent winds. She was unhappy and we were miserable in her company.

 

My cousin stood shivering behind me, his roguish hair thoroughly layered in the pure white madness that enveloped us. Tall looming pines surrounded us, the forest whispering their own secrets. The overbearing peaks strove for the endless skies while we were grounded in our short statures and small words.

 

Asher had wanted to tell me something important; something that would never leave my lips again. Only the trees would know of the deadly secret. The secret that would leave me stranded on an island of doubt, worry and a shadow of sick fascination.

 

“Z-Zane,” his voice trembled and it became apparent that the cold wasn't the lone factor in his nervousness. I tried to listen as he struggled with his words. The words and emotions that bridged between us seemed to battle the ever-changing stormy winds. I wanted to listen. I tried but my hands were blocks of useless ice and my legs shook in the developing frost; my mind freshly jumbled by the screeching winds.

 

“Zane,” he said again as he finally calmed, “I'm gay.” His words were a stone cold that weighed a heavy pit inside of me. I was filled with dread.

 

What was I to say? Who was I to judge? What answer could I give? I had to accept him. I had to listen and sympathize. I was forced to play the role of a consular. We were family. Bonded by the blood, or was it the love, that was so much heavier than the muddy waters of society? Even the unnerving snow that conquered us in our everyday lives couldn't challenge such an affiliation. Hell, even society demanded acceptance. Look at all the damn f*g parades.

 

Yet, I was still speechless. Questions whirled around me, inside me. Everything was spinning. The snow spiraled in an almost aggressive trance and the winds became increasingly forceful because suddenly everything was different. He was different. I was different now. Hell, even the landscape had changed.

 

“Okay,” my whisper barely audible. He gave me a blank stare and those amber eyes glistened over blue quivering lips and I was suddenly hit with an encore of questions: Was he going to cry? What about me? I had known him for as long as I had lived. Seventeen years had flown by, how could Asher harbor this kind of secret? How could I listen to him when such a thing, such a disease had grown inside him. Such a secret had thrived within his soul. He was different in my eyes now, as I was in his own.

 

No. Tears slid down his icing face and the warm liquid seeped through the ice that fell impossibly harder around us. Soon salty droplets filled my own eyes, jarring my thoughts as I spoke.

 

“No, I-I'm okay with it. Honest.”

 

Stop, please. I pleaded with him, with myself, for the tears to halt and the snow to stop. We stood in the snow for what seemed like forever, trapped in the secrets that had slept under the surface.

 

Maybe it was my hate for the snow; how unmerciful and unmoving it was that drove me to accept him. Maybe it was because I loathed to be compared to such an icy thing, such a cold cruel entity, for it may have been the frigid winds and frost blankets that convinced me to accept him. Maybe it was how the dark waters of society had been marred with the dirt of greed, envy and pride and it mingled ever so with our shared blood. Maybe that was what had changed me, persuaded me to accept him with partially opened arms and mind. A reluctant gate that never should have been opened had been opened, and maybe that's why I had accepted my cousin.

 

Maybe my love for him had nothing to do with it.