Free Cherish the Land by Ariel Tachna

no one attributed it to anything more than hotheaded adolescence. He couldn’t use that excuse now. He was no longer an adolescent who could get away with stunts like that. He had responsibilities, and that meant finding other ways to steady himself when the noise in his head became too much to bear.
    “Did you get someone to look at it?” Jason asked. “You don’t want it to get infected.”
    “I cleaned it out when it happened,” Seth said. He’d learned more than enough first aid in his attempts to hide his injuries to keep the scrapes clean. He hadn’t covered them because it would have made working this morning difficult, but he’d do that before dinner. People would notice the gauze more than a few scrapes, but if they couldn’t see the marks, they couldn’t question his story.
    “That must have been one hell of a bolt,” Jason remarked. “So what else is on the agenda today?”
    “I have to drive out to a couple of the drover’s huts to get the lay of the land. I heard a rumor about solar generators and windmills. It’s not my area of expertise, but I had a couple of classes on green energy, so I should be able to get an idea of what might work. But for that I need to see the huts, because each one will be different. You don’t have to go with me if you don’t want to. It won’t be particularly interesting work.”
    “It’s not about the work,” Jason said. “It’s about spending the day with you. We haven’t had a day together in a long time. Even if you have to spend this one working, at least we can be together. I can take notes for you, if nothing else.”
    Take the bloody excuse not to come , Seth thought miserably. He craved spending the day with Jason, but having him there and yet so far away was salt in the wounds on Seth’s heart. He could deal with physical pain, but the pain in his heart made him want to run for the nearest knife. “Sure. You got something to write with?”
    “No, but I’ll get something from Mum. Give me five minutes and I’ll be good to go.”
    Seth nodded as Jason walked out of the tractor shed. The minute Jason was out of sight, Seth slumped against the tractor. Fuck, he was a glutton for punishment. Why had he decided to come home again?
    As easy as it was to wish he’d stayed in Sydney, he’d been miserable there too. Maybe not the cutting kind of miserable, but more a numb, dead inside kind of miserable. The kind cutting couldn’t fix. As hard as it would be to see Jason every day and know he went off with Cooper every night, at least he was home.
    Jason hadn’t said anything, of course. He was too discreet for that. But Seth had seen the way he sat carefully, the way he’d winced when he shifted on the hay bale from time to time. Seth might not have any personal experience with it, but he recognized the lingering signs of a good fuck when he saw them. He just wished he’d been the one to leave Jason feeling that way.
    Far too quickly, Jason popped back into the tractor shed. “I have a notebook and pencil. I’m ready to go when you are.”
    “Let’s go.”
    They headed toward the gravel car park where they kept the station’s utes when they weren’t in use. Seth climbed in and found the keys in the ignition. “Ready?” he asked Jason.
    “I was born ready,” Jason retorted.
    The familiar comeback made Seth smile. How many times had they had that exact exchange before a test for School of the Air? God, it was so easy to fall back into all the old habits with Jason, but they weren’t teenagers anymore, and Seth knew a little more about himself than he had then. Would things be different if he’d been able to put a name to the warmth in his chest when he was sixteen or eighteen? He doubted it. He was Jason’s best friend, the buddy he joked around with, studied with, played tricks with, but not the lover Jason took to his bed. No, someone else had that privilege. Seth wanted to be happy for Jason. Really, he did. If only Jason’s