The next day was a Saturday, and the world was, by all accounts, perfect. It was the kind of crisp, brilliant, late-autumn day where the sky is a painful, impossible blue and the air smells like cut grass and cold apples.
Ruth had declared it a "mental health day" and dragged Bruce on a picnic.
"You've been... extra-Brucey," she'd announced at his door, holding a wicker basket and a red-and-white blanket. "You look like a sad ghost. You need sun."
Now, they were on a hill overlooking Oaktown, the town laid out below them like a perfect, peaceful model-train village. The church steeple, the water tower, the neat little squares of houses.
The peace was a lie.
Bruce sat on the blanket, his knees drawn to his chest, and felt like he was screaming.
The amulet—the small, dark, heavy piece of wood—was on his desk at home. He'd been too terrified to touch it since the nightmare. It lay there, a "hot coal" he'd thrown across the room, leaving a small, faint burn mark on his skin where it had rested.
And without it, the hum was back.
No. "Hum" was the wrong word. It had been a hum. Now, after the dream, after the amulet had tried to chain it, it was a roar.
It was a high-voltage, starving, furious static in his bones. It wasn't just noise; it was hunger. The dream of the giant, pulsing heart had infected his waking life. The world was too loud. The blue of the sky was too bright. The smell of the grass was so sharp it made his eyes water. He was a raw, exposed nerve, and Ruth's "perfect day" was a physical assault.
He'd been better with the amulet. He'd been clear. He'd had that moment of... power... with Dickson. And that, he realized, was what scared him the most. The quiet, cold, calm feeling that he could just make things stop.
Which was worse? The roaring, hungry chaos of the hum, or the cold, clean silence of the monster?
"...and I just don't think I can write another 500 words on The Great Gatsby," Ruth was saying, unpacking sandwiches. "I mean, he's a horrible, obsessed creep, right? Why does everyone romanticize him?"
She looked at Bruce. He was sketching, not on his pad, but digging a fingernail into the dirt, drawing the same, coiled, spiral-knot pattern over and over. He was shaking. Just a small, fine tremor in his hands.
"Bruce?" she said, her bright, easy tone faltering. "You with me?"
He looked up, his eyes unfocused. "What? Yeah. Sorry. Gatsby. He's... a creep."
"You haven't eaten anything," she said, her voice soft with a familiar, frustrated concern. She pushed a sandwich at him. "And you look awful. Is it... is it Dickson again? Did he do something?"
"No," Bruce said, his voice quiet. He pushed the sandwich away. The very thought of food made his stomach clench. The hunger he felt... it wasn't for food. "No, it's not Dickson."
"Is it your gram? Is she okay?"
"She's fine."
"Then what, Bruce?" she asked, putting the sandwich down. She moved closer, her knee brushing his. Her warmth was a distraction, a brief, small mercy. "Talk to me. You've been... God, you've been a million miles away. You're right here, but you're gone."
He looked at her. At her clear, kind, worried eyes. Her face, so full of life, so normal. She was the only thing in his life that felt real. And he was a lie. He was a walking, talking lie, sitting next to her on a red-and-white blanket, pretending to be a boy.
He had to tell her. He couldn't tell her everything. But he had to tell her something.
"Ruth..." he started. His voice cracked. He swallowed, the hunger a coppery, metallic taste in the back of his throat. "Do you ever... do you ever feel like there's just... something wrong with you?"
It was the most honest, terrifying thing he had ever said.
Her face softened. The frustration was gone, replaced by a wave of deep, maternal affection. "What do you mean? Like, you're sick?"
"No," he said, shaking his head. He looked down at his hands, at the dirt under his nails. "I mean... deep. Deep inside. Like... like you're broken. Or you're hiding something, but you're even hiding it from yourself. Like you're... wrong." He finally looked at her, his eyes desperate. "When I was dreaming... I felt... this... thing. This hunger. And it scared me. It really, really scared me, Ruth. And... I think... I think it was me."
He held his breath. He had given her the knife. He had shown her his throat. He was waiting for her to run. To look at him with the same fear and disgust everyone else did.
Ruth stared at him for a long, quiet moment. He could see her processing, her mind working. She didn't run.
She sighed, a soft, sad sound. "Oh, Bruce."
She didn't move away. She moved closer. And she took his hand.
Her hand was warm, a little calloused from her guitar. It was real. It was an anchor.
"There is nothing wrong with you," she said, her voice fierce, but so, so gentle. "Do you hear me? Nothing."
He looked at her, stunned into silence.
"You're... you," she said, as if it were the simplest, most obvious thing in the world. "You're quiet. And you're intense. And you see the world differently. You feel things, Bruce. Deeper than anyone I know. That's not 'wrong.' That's... it's just you."
"But the dream..."
"It was a nightmare, you goof," she said, squeezing his hand. "A bad one. Because you're stressed. About school, about... about everything. You're not hungry. You're not a monster. You're just... Bruce."
She leaned in, her hair smelling like apples. "And you're the best person I know."
She kissed him.
It was soft, and a little chapped from the wind, and it was the most real thing that had happened to him all day. The second her lips touched his, the roar in his head didn't just quiet; it retreated. It was as if her simple, human, normal reality was a shield, and the screaming, hungry thing inside him couldn't touch her.
It was... peace.
He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her close, holding on to her like a drowning man. He buried his face in her hair, breathing in the smell of apples and sunlight. For one second, he was safe. He was just a boy on a hill, kissing a girl.
"See?" she whispered, smiling against his lips. "Nothing wrong with you."
He held her tight. And over her shoulder, he looked down at the model-train town, so peaceful in the afternoon sun. He felt the warmth of her in his arms.
And he felt the skin on his left shoulder blade, right over his birthmark, begin to itch.
He held her tighter, a new, colder dread seeping in.
He knew, with an absolute, sinking certainty, that she was wrong.