by Tracy Wolff
“Oh, yeah? You’re drowning in guilt, drowning in the fact that you’re healthy and your brother isn’t, right? That you can do things he’ll never be able to do again. How is that not exactly the same thing I was feeling?”
Because Lily’s dead. She died and what you did couldn’t hurt her anymore. The words are right there on the tip of my tongue, and I want to lash out with them. Want to use them to push him so far away that he’ll never fucking try to talk about this shit again.
But in the end, I can’t do it. Not now, when Z is trying so hard to get his shit—get his life—together. Not now, when he has Ophelia and he’s finally in therapy and he’s doing everything right. Not now, when he’s vulnerable in a way I’ve never seen him before.
If I kicked him now, I’m not sure either one of us would ever recover.
But goddamnit, I need to do something. Every fucking breath I take is like a knife in my windpipe, like shards of shattered glass working their way through my veins.
Only there’s nothing to do. Nothing to say. Nothing to stop the fucking nightmare Logan and I are locked inside. The knowledge is there, inside me, battering at my consciousness with every breath I take. Which is why, in the end, all I do is bend over and start picking up the cans that litter the coffee table. “You should probably go. I’ve got to work in the morning.”
“Ash—”
“I can’t—” My voice breaks under the strain of everything I don’t say. “Look, just go, okay?”
“Logan would understand, Ash. I know you don’t want to hurt him, but, fuck, man. You’re the best goddamn snowboarder I’ve ever seen.”
“Yeah, right. That’s why you’ve got two gold medals and I’ve got dick.” Shit. That came out sounding a lot more bitter than I intended it to.
“Yeah, well, if you want them, you need to stop acting like a pussy.” Z glares at me, arms spread wide in obvious challenge. “You need to get your ass back on that fucking snowboard and come and get them.”
Nice. No sympathy from my best friend. Which, actually, is really nice. I’ve been drowning in sympathy—from Ophelia, from Cam, from Luc, from Sarah, from everyone—for what feels like forever. “It’s not about the fucking medals, Z.”
“You think I don’t know that? If it was, I would have fucking given them to you a long time ago. But what this is about—which is you punishing yourself—doesn’t work, either. You’ve already changed your whole life for Logan. Has the kid gotten a raw deal? Absolutely. But you’ve been there for him through everything. From the moment he woke up in that hospital room, you’ve given up everything to be there for him. But that doesn’t mean you have to give up snowboarding, too. It doesn’t mean you have to give up who you are just so you can take care of him.”
His words ring through the room, seem to bounce off walls and echo all around me. Or maybe it’s just my own head they’re echoing in. Either way, it doesn’t matter. Either way, “Even if I wanted to snowboard again, it’s too dangerous. I can’t take that kind of risk, not now. Logan’s already lost Mom and Dad. What the hell would happen to him if I got hurt or died, too? Who would take care of him?”
Z doesn’t have an answer for that. I can tell by the way his eyes dart around the room, like he’s searching for inspiration. But he’s got nothing, because there is nothing. Nothing to say. Nothing to do. Oh, I know if something happened, my friends would do what they could, but the fact is all of them are boarders. They all do dangerous shit on a daily basis. He’d be no better off with them than he is with me.
“You should go,” I tell him, glancing at the clock in an effort to break the silence stretching between us. “Ophelia will be getting out of class soon.”
“I can stay. If you”—he clears his throat—“want to talk or something.”
“I think we’ve talked enough, don’t you?”
“Maybe. For now.” He looks a little relieved, and I don’t blame him. This talking about feelings and shit isn’t how either one of us normally operates.
“Shoot me that woman’s contact info and I’ll give her a call,” he tells me as he walks toward the door. “See if I can set something up with that kid. What’s his name?”
“Timmy.”
“Yeah, Timmy. I may not be the great Ash Lewis, but maybe he’ll take sloppy seconds.”
It’s my turn to roll my eyes. “Don’t be a douche.”
He grins before ducking out the door. “Hey, I’m just saying it how it is. Everybody looooves Ash. You’re sooooo dreamy.”
I flip him off before closing the door in his face. God, it’s fucking ridiculous how much I want a drink. And not a beer, either. A shot of whiskey—or three—would be nice right about now. Or a couple hits. Something, anything, to take the edge off.
“You lied to me.”
Fuck. I turn at the sound of my brother’s voice, to find him sitting in his chair at the edge of the foyer. “What’s wrong? Couldn’t you sleep?” I ignore the accusation he hurled at me, even as I desperately try to find an excuse that he’ll buy.
“Kind of hard to sleep with you and Z yelling at each other.”
Shit. I hadn’t realized we’d gotten that loud. “Sorry. Can I, uh, take you back to bed?”
“I can get myself back to bed,” he tells me, all fourteen-year-old attitude. “I’m not completely helpless, you know.”
“Of course I know that.”
He glares at me. “Besides, I don’t need help from a liar anyway.”
Goddamnit. “It’s not like that, Logan.”
“Not like what? You said you were just taking a break from boarding. You said you didn’t have the heart for it after Mom and Dad died. You said you’d go back to it next year, when the snow hits. You said—” He breaks off with a sob.
I’m across the room in a second, squatting down next to the chair so I can look him in the eye even as I curse myself. Curse Z. I want to hug him, but his body language is screaming at me to back off, so I settle for putting a hand on his knee—right up until I remember he can’t feel the touch anymore. Can’t feel anything from the waist down.
“I don’t have the heart for it right now, Logan. That’s the truth. Every time I even think about boarding, I see Mom and Dad and—”
“Me. You see me. Your pathetic little brother who is so sad, so selfish, that he can’t handle the idea of you snowboarding ever again just because he can’t. Right? You think I’m so weak, so pitiful, that you’re going to give up the only thing you’ve ever been good at for me.” He sounds angrier than I’ve ever heard him. “Do you think that’s what I want, Ash? Do you think that’s what I fucking want?”
“Of course, I don’t. But there’s a lot to consider right now—”
“Whatever,” he snarls at me, then wheels his chair around and starts booking it down the hallway. If I’m honest, I’m a little shocked at how fast he can move when he wants to.
I trail behind him, trying to get him to listen to reason, but he’s not having any of it. “I heard you, Ash. I heard everything you said. You think this is easy for me? You think I like the fact that my friends don’t know how to talk to me? That they don’t come over because I can’t go to the lake with them, can’t go swimming, can’t play fucking basketball without this wheelchair?”
Guilt crushes me at his words, makes me feel even more like a piece of shit than I already do. “Logan—”
“I get it from them and I take it because I have to, because I don’t have a choice and because I get where they’re coming from. They don’t know what to say or how to act around me or anything like that. But you … you’re my brother. I don’t need you to treat me like I’m different, too. Like I’m useless. And I sure as shit don’t need you to give up snowboarding for me.”
“I’m not giving it up for you,” I tell him, injecting a forcefulness into my voice that I’m far from feeling right now. “I’m giving it up because it’s the right thing to do. Because you matter more to me than any stupid sport ever will. I need you to understand
that.”
“And I need you to understand that you matter to me, too. I don’t want you to be miserable because of me.”
“I’m not. Logan, I swear, I’m not.”
“Yeah, right. You think I can’t tell the difference in you? You think I can’t tell how much you fucking hate your life?”
“That has nothing to do with you!”
“Maybe not. But it has everything to do with snowboarding, and that has to do with me, so …”
Jesus Christ, when did my little brother get this fucking logical? This fucking smart? And when did I get so goddamned tongue-tied? “Logan—”
“I’m tired, Ash.” We’re at his room now and Logan wheels inside. “Leave me alone so I can get some sleep.” The door slams behind him.
Standing there in that hall—fists clenched and forehead resting against the cool wood of his door, while the harsh sound of Logan’s sobs echoes all around me—is one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. I reach for the doorknob a dozen times, but in the end I don’t turn it.
Because he asked me not to.
Because, from the time he got out of the hospital, his room has been his safe zone. The place he can cry or rage or do whatever he needs to do to come to grips with what’s happened to him. Because no matter how much this whole thing has fucked me up, I’m a twenty-one-year-old man. He’s a fourteen-year-old boy who has lost total control over not just his life, but his body, too.
If he wants privacy, if he doesn’t want to talk to me, then I owe him that much control. That much respect. Especially when I’m the one who ruined what had been a pretty good night.
But I can’t just walk away, either. Can’t just leave him when he’s this hysterical.
Not knowing what else to do, I slide down until I’m sitting with my back braced against the door. And then I wait, head bent and unshed tears burning behind my eyes, for my baby brother to finally quiet down and fall asleep.
It takes a long, long time.
Chapter 4
Tansy
“What’s wrong, Tansy?” my mother asks, hovering over me with a pitcher of fresh pineapple juice in her hand. “Are you feeling okay?” Her hand goes immediately to my forehead.
I want to shrug her off—I’m so sick of her worrying about me having a fever or not eating or the cancer coming back—but in the end, I just tolerate it. Of course I do. She and my dad have been through hell for the last ten years as I’ve fought this damn disease, and it’s only normal for us all to have a little PTSD now that I’m in remission. Or at least, that’s what the shrink they force me to go to says.
“I’m fine, Mom. Just tired. I didn’t get much sleep last night.”
“Are you hurting? Is something wrong?” She sets the juice on the table and sits down next to me. Her hands go to my neck, my shoulder, my arm, looking for bruises and other telltale signs that aren’t there. It’s my body and I’d kind of like her to back off, to trust me to know when something’s wrong, but again, that’s not going to happen. Not anytime soon anyway.
My sister, Anna, is sitting across from me and I try not to giggle as she crosses her eyes behind Mom’s back. Thank God I have her. She’s only a year and a half younger than me, and definitely the comic relief in the family. I don’t think I would have gotten through all the cancer shit I’ve faced for the last decade if I didn’t have her at my back, cracking jokes and making everything seem not quite as bad as it was.
“It’s just work. I totally screwed up the first real job they’ve given me and I don’t know how to fix it.”
She frowns. “Are you sure you should be working? We agreed you could take this job as long as it wasn’t too stressful. The doctors say you’re supposed to avoid stress, concentrate on getting your strength back—”
That’s it. I tried, but I can’t take the hovering anymore. “It’s been six weeks, Mom. We just had my checkup and everything looks good. I’m exercising, building up my strength, and I really like my job. I’m planning on keeping it even after school starts in the fall.”
My mom looks horrified, just as I knew she would. Which is why I reach over and grab a muffin out of the basket on the table—one I’m sure is made with about a billion antioxidants that fight cancer—before beating a hasty retreat. In this house especially, running away is definitely the better part of sanity. So not how the phrase is supposed to go, but oh well. The meaning behind it is the same.
I’m definitely running away.
As I grab my purse and head out the front door, I run headlong into my brother, Topher. “Eeew,” I exclaim as he reaches sweaty arms out to balance me. “Let go! You’re disgusting.”
“That’s the thanks I get for saving you, huh?” He leans down and rubs his dripping forehead against my own.
“Topher! Stop!” I just took a shower and now I’m covered in boy sweat. And not just any boy sweat. Sixteen-year-old-runner boy sweat. Ugh! “Gross!”
He cackles and wipes his sweaty palms down my arms before stepping back with a wicked grin. “What’s wrong, Tansy? You looked like you needed a bath. I was just trying to help.”
I punch him in the stomach, then immediately regret it when my hand comes away wet. “How far did you run, anyway?”
“Ten miles.”
“Overachiever.”
“Yeah, well, we can’t all be delicate hothouse flowers who sit around all day looking pretty,” he tells me.
“But I do it so well.” I bat my eyes, fluff my hair.
“Topher!” My dad’s voice rings out. “Apologize to your sister immediately. That’s a terrible thing to say.”
My brother freezes at the coldness in our father’s voice, and he steps back immediately. “Sorry, Tansy.” He moves around me, taking off down the hall without so much as glancing at Dad.
Damn it. “Dad, he was just messing with me. It’s no big deal.”
“Yes, well, you’ve had it rough and he needs to understand that. He shouldn’t be making fun of you for not having the stamina to run ten miles. It’s not okay.”
Ugh. I grit my teeth, count backward from ten. “Yes, Dad. Sorry.”
“You have nothing to apologize for.”
“Fine. I’ve got to go. I’m working today.” I head out the still open door into the sticky heat of a Salt Lake summer morning. Double ugh. No wonder Topher was so sweaty. It’s disgusting out here.
“Don’t work too hard,” my dad calls after me. “You need to keep your strength up.”
“Got it,” I tell him, wondering if it’s possible to clench my jaw so tightly that I actually break a tooth. I hope not. If it happens, I’m sure my parents will take it as some sign that the calcium is being leached out of my body by cancer. I’ll end up back at the oncologist undergoing about a million tests I don’t need.
It takes every ounce of willpower I have to unclench my jaw and my fists as I slide into my car. I pull out my phone, text Sorry, Dad’s an ass to my brother. It only takes a minute for him to respond with a happy alien face. I’m not sure what that’s supposed to mean, but I’ll take it. It’s more response than I usually get when Topher’s brooding.
The drive to work is uneventful—much like my life—and I’m just pulling into a parking spot when my phone rings. Figuring it’s my mom calling to make sure I made it safely—yes, she still does that and no, she doesn’t care at all that I’m nineteen years old—I pick it up without even looking at the caller ID.
“I’m fine. Just pulled into work.”
“Umm, I’m glad to hear that?” a deep male voice answers.
I pull the phone away from my ear, stare at the screen wildly for a second as I try to figure out who the unfamiliar voice might belong to. But the number is unknown, of course. “I’m sorry. Who is this?”
“I’m Alan Montgomery. I’m Ash Lewis’s manager. He asked me to give you a call and see if we could set up a date for Timmy’s Make-A-Wish visit.”
“He’s changed his mind?” I ask as excitement thrums through me. “He wants to
do it?”
“Oh, he definitely wants to do it. He asked me to apologize to you for his behavior yesterday. You caught him off guard. But he definitely wants to meet Timmy and help out any way he can.”
“That means what, exactly?” I try to clarify. Just yesterday, Ash was completely dead-set against the snowboarding part of the wish. It’s hard to imagine that he’s changed his tune so quickly.
“Whatever you need it to,” Alan tells me. “He’s willing to spend a day on the slopes if that’s what Timmy wants, as well as hang with him wherever you deem appropriate.”
“Oh my God, that’s so amazing!” I squeal before I can help myself.
“Yeah, well, Ash is an amazing guy.”
“He really is,” I gush. “I don’t know how to thank him. Timmy will be so thrilled!”
“No need for that. Ash is happy to help whenever he can. Especially for a kid like Timmy.” He pauses, clears his throat. Then the deep baritone is back. “So, how does this work? I’ve never been a part of a Make-A-Wish before, so I’m not sure how things go from here.”
I can’t help thinking it’s a little strange that a manager with clients as high caliber as Alan Montgomery’s obviously are hasn’t had to do a Make-A-Wish before, but then again, extreme sports are still making a name for themselves in the mainstream. A couple more years and he’ll probably be crawling with requests.
“Well, this is the point where I ask you for any dates that absolutely won’t work for Ash. Then I call Timmy’s parents and they consult with his doctors to try and see when they think it’s viable for him to go to Oregon. We’ll come up with three or four dates that work between them and the ski camp and then I’ll contact Ash to see which date is best for him. And then I’ll take it from there, make all the arrangements. All he has to do is show up. Does that sound okay?”
I pause, remind myself to take a breath. I’m trying to be professional here, but I’m so excited I’m nearly jumping out of my skin. I didn’t fail! Timmy is going to get his wish! And I’m going to get to see Ash again.
The thought creeps into my consciousness, unbidden, and though I try to ignore it, all kinds of images from our meeting yesterday bombard me. I’ve been trying really hard not to think about that meeting—about him—but now that his manager is on the phone, it’s impossible. From the way Ash’s eyes lit up when he smiled to the way his lips felt pressed against the nape of my neck to the way his whole face closed up when I told him what I was really there for. There’d been a part of me that was kicking myself, the same part that wanted nothing more than to melt against him in that storage closet. To let him do whatever he wanted to me.