CHAPTER 24
Cameron reached Blythe House's room. She lifted her hand to knock on the door, when she heard hollow, choked sobs coming from within. She peered through the window and saw House sitting in a chair with his elbows resting on his knees and his head tucked in toward his chest, his back shaking with the guttural noises that he released from deep in the core of his body. She pushed the door open and rushed to him.
"Get out," he choked. She reached to him. "GET OUT!!!" He swatted her hands away violently, but she stood her ground.
"No." He tried to stop crying but between the agonizing pain in his leg and the intensity of his emotions, he couldn't. It was as if a lifetime of pain, disappointment, anger, was contained in a bottle that had now been uncorked and escaped so fast and strong that it could not be restrained. Outwardly furious and inwardly ashamed, he rose from his chair and stalked to the corner of the room facing inward, where he could hide from Cameron's eyes. She came up behind him and ran her arms across his shoulders and leaned her face into his back. He shrugged her off with a force strong enough to knock her back. Determined not to be dismissed, she approached him again and placed her hands on his shoulders, but this time she gently turned him around to face her. He surrendered. She pulled his head toward her and he buried his face in the crook of her neck, now wet with his sweat and tears. She gently stroked his hair and her soothing voice murmured quiet, indistinguishable words of consolation as his sobs became muffled in her neck. His arms wrapped tightly around her, but gradually relaxed as his sobs were reduced to intermittent gasps, as though someone were wringing out the last drops of water from a damp rag. Her ministrations continued even after he became silent and limp in her arms. He could taste the salt of his own tears on her neck, which he kissed, and kissed again, before lifting his head to meet hers. His lifeless eyes were muted to a transparent, aquamarine blue, swallowed into the depths of his emotionless countenance. The sounds around them reappeared one by one into their consciousness as they descended back into the real world.
The stern face of John House glaring through the window in the door went unnoticed, and disappeared.