by Tracy Wolff
But in the end, I end up spilling about Ash, telling them all about the trip to Chile and the fun I had with him—minus certain, strategic bedroom and patio scenes, of course. My mom might be all into the girl talk, but there are some things that no parent needs to know.
“So, that’s why he carried you off the plane!” my mom squeals, when I get to the end of the story. “The boy is in love with you.”
My blood runs cold at the very idea. “No. He’s not. Weren’t you listening? We were just having fun!”
Anna snorts. “I’ve had fun with a lot of guys—” She breaks off when my mom shoots her the evil eye. “Not that kind of fun, geez, Mom!” She turns back to me. “I’ve hung out with a bunch of guys, Tansy, and they don’t do those things you just described if they aren’t totally gone over a girl.”
“She’s right,” my mom says. “I saw his face when he walked off that plane with you. I was too concerned about your health to spend much time thinking about it at the time, but that boy loves you very much. He’d probably be here right now if your father and I had given him the choice.”
My heart drops to my toes at just the thought. There’s a part of me that’s screaming, “Yes!” That’s having a party and praying that my mom and sister know exactly what they’re talking about. But there’s another part, a bigger part—the part that loves Ash and understands just how much pain he’s in—that prays that isn’t true. He’s been through so much and he deserves so much better than this. So much better than sitting around a hospital waiting for someone else that he loves to die.
“God, I hope that’s not true.”
“Wait—what?” Anna looks totally confused and even my mother seems a little startled by my answer, the satisfied look on her face fading away.
Suddenly, I don’t want to talk anymore. Rolling over, I face the wall, and try not to freak out at the idea that I’ve somehow managed to do what I swore I wouldn’t. That not only have I fallen for Ash, but I’ve let him fall for me.
It’s a terrible thought, one that makes me shudder deep inside. It’s bad enough that I feel like this—my heart torn and bloody and exposed, so exposed. The idea that Ash is going through the same thing after everything he’s already experienced … Just the thought has my stomach roiling and panic clutching in my chest.
I wouldn’t wish the roller coaster of the last decade on anyone, let alone Ash. I’ve already spent too many years watching the people I care about suffer because of this damn disease I just can’t seem to shake. The last thing I want is to condemn Ash to the same fate.
“I bet he’s trying to figure out what hospital you’re in right now,” Anna tells me.
“Absolutely,” my mom agrees, patting my back in a rhythm I know she means to be soothing, but that just feels suffocating instead. “You’re both just a little upset about the situation—and who could blame you? Give him a little time to get his head around all this and he’ll be back. I saw how he looked at you. Feelings like that just don’t go away.”
I know she’s only trying to make me feel better—they both are—but they’re only making it worse. “I’m tired,” I tell them abruptly, uttering the magic words that experience has taught me will shut my family up instantly. “I want to sleep.”
It works like a charm, just like it always does. “Okay, baby,” my mom says, brushing a kiss across my cheek. “We’ll go down and get something to eat. Let you rest. But we won’t leave the hospital, so text if you need us.” She makes sure my phone is charged and within reach.
“He’ll come,” Anna whispers to me, squeezing my hand in a way I know she means to be encouraging. “This is a lot for him to wrap his head around, but he’ll come.”
I don’t tell her that that’s exactly what I’m afraid of.
Even if I’m not sick this time, even if this is just some weird virus that’s kicking my weakened immune system’s ass, I don’t want Ash to see me like this. I don’t want him to come around because he feels obligated like he does with so many other parts of his life.
And I don’t want him to come around because he loves me, either. It’s better for him if he just moves on, just forgets about the strange girl with the weird clothes and weirder cancer.
As if just thinking about him conjured him up, my phone buzzes from its spot next to the water pitcher. I roll over, pick it up gingerly, like it’s a snake that might strike at any second. But it isn’t Ash texting me. It’s Cam, checking to see how I’m feeling.
I type off a quick, flippant answer, then scroll through my other missed texts. From Luc and Ophelia and Z. Logan has sent me one, too, because he wanted “to check in.” There’s also a text from Timmy and his parents, thanking me again for the trip and asking me to let them know how I’m doing when I get out of the hospital. Even Ericka has written something.
For a girl who’s spent most of her life being the odd one out—bald, skinny, sick—the sudden overwhelming influx of friendship feels odd. Good, important, terrifying, but odd.
I take a few minutes to answer each of them, even manage to respond to their answering texts. As I do, I tell myself I’m grateful that Ash is the only one who didn’t try to check on me. The only one who didn’t text.
And as I roll over to face the wall again, tears slowly tracing a path down my cheeks, I even believe it. Better a fast break now than a slow, agonizing one later. Ash deserves better than that … and maybe, so do I.
Chapter 27
Ash
“Pizza or Chinese?” I ask Logan from the doorway to his room. He’s currently sitting on his bed, sulking, and pretending to play Xbox. But I’ve been standing here for a couple of minutes now, and haven’t seen his thumb move over the controller once.
He shrugs. “Whatever.”
“Anchovy and mushroom pizza it is, then.”
Even that doesn’t get much of a response, just a quick glare before he goes back to staring blankly at the television screen.
And maybe it’s a mistake, maybe I should just give him more time, but I can’t take the almost silent treatment for one second longer. Not from him. Not after that plane ride from hell. Not after saying good-bye to Timmy at the airport and watching Tansy drive away to the hospital without a backward glance.
No, patience is not something I’ve got right now and it’s past time that Logan figured that out.
“Hey,” I tell him, as I cross the room and sit down at his desk. “I want to talk to you.”
He shrugs again, doesn’t even bother looking away from the game.
It gets to me, which is exactly what he’s intending, so I work really hard not to show it. But it’s difficult, especially with all the other shit going on in my head right now. It’s taking every ounce of willpower I have not to call every hospital in town until I find the one that Tansy’s in.
I could just text her, but I figure she won’t answer me. Not after the bullshit I pulled when I found out she was sick. Besides, I don’t even know what I’d say. I’m sorry doesn’t seem to cover it, especially not when I still feel blindsided by the fact that she has cancer and didn’t bother to tell me. And not when she made it more than obvious that she doesn’t want to see me again.
“Look, can we talk about what happened in Chile?” I ask after a few more minutes of brooding silence. “It kind of got swept under the rug with everything going on there at the end—”
“You mean Tansy getting sick again?”
I grit my teeth. “Yes.”
“You can say it, you know. It’s not like voodoo or black magic. Tansy’s sick.”
There’s a part of me that wants to punch the kid—he’s being such an obnoxious little shit. “I’m aware of that, dude.”
“Are you?” He looks at me for the first time since I came to this room. Maybe for the first time since we had that fight in Chile.
“I don’t know what you’re getting at. If you have something to say, stop being cryptic and say it!”
“I’ve already said it. You just don’t want
to hear it.” He turns back to the TV, actually does something with the controller this time that has the noise on-screen getting infinitely louder.
“That’s it.” I stand up, slam the off button on the TV. “I’ve given you a hell of a lot of leeway, but it stops here.”
“Why?”
“What do you mean why? You’re acting like—”
“No. I mean, why did you give me leeway? Why didn’t you call me on my shit hours ago?”
I’m baffled, absolutely fucking baffled. “What do you mean? I was trying to be considerate—”
“To the cripple!” he shouts. “You were trying to be considerate to the cripple! This is the same old shit, Ash. The same shit you’ve been giving me for seven fucking months. You don’t want to upset me because I’m paralyzed. You don’t want to fight with me because I’m crippled. Don’t you ever get sick of being so nice? Don’t you ever get sick of being such a goddamned martyr?”
His words slam over me, into me, like an avalanche. “I’m trying to do the right thing here.”
“For you!” he shouts. “You’re trying to do the right thing for you!”
Outrage replaces the shock in an instant. “Okay, now wait a fucking minute. You can say a lot of things about me, about how I don’t know what I’m doing and how I’m an idiot who keeps fucking up, but don’t you ever say that I’m not trying to do the right thing for you.”
“Yeah, like you were trying to do the right thing for Tansy.”
Ice slams through. “Don’t talk about her. Don’t you fucking talk about her.”
“Why not? Because then you’ll have to admit what a fucking coward you are? How she got sick and you just let her go because you couldn’t deal. That’s the whole thing, right? Ash Fucking Lewis. Always so perfect. Always has a plan. But things aren’t perfect now. I’m not perfect, Tansy’s not perfect, your life isn’t perfect, so you can’t deal with it.”
“That’s not true.”
“Oh, it’s totally true. You don’t want it to be, but it is. You keep fucking trying to make these perfect slots and shove us in there. Tansy didn’t fit, so you just gave up. Just let her drive away. Is that what’s going to happen when you figure out that I don’t fit, either? Are you just going to give up on me, too?” He’s crying now, harsh, ugly sobs that turn his face red and rip right through him. There’s a part of me that wants to go to him and just hold him, but there’s another part that’s furious he’s saying these things to me. Furious that he’s thinking them when I’ve done everything, everything, I could think of to make the last seven months as easy on him as I possibly could.
There are a million things on the tip of my tongue, a bunch of words I don’t know how to say. A bunch of words I’m scared to say because I won’t be able to take them back.
While I stand there like an idiot, Logan wipes at his face with the backs of his hands, sniffs a few times. He needs a Kleenex, but there are none near him and I know there’s no way he’ll get in his chair right now and go get one. Not when we’re in the middle of this.
To give myself a chance to think, to cool down from the outrage and the pain ripping through me, I walk into the bathroom and grab a box of tissues. Then walk over to the bed and hold it out to Logan.
He sneers at me even as he rips it from my hands. “Thanks,” he says sarcastically. “Saint Ash is at it again.”
I lose it, then. Absolutely, fucking lose it. “Who the fuck do you think you are?”
“I know exactly who I am. You’re the one who’s forgotten it!”
“Fuck you, Logan. Fuck you! You think this is easy? You think it’s easy trying to figure out what to do for you? Trying to make sure you’re okay? Trying to do the right thing when all I want to do—”
“What? All you want to do is what?”
“Nothing.” I head for the door. “I’m going to order pizza.”
“Of course you are. That’s what you do when bad shit happens. You run away.”
“Bullshit!” I turn on him. “I’m right here, Logan. I’m right fucking here.”
“But you aren’t! You think I don’t know what you were going to say? You think I didn’t see your face when we were in Chile. All you want to do is snowboard. It’s all you’ve ever wanted to do. And you gave it up to punish yourself. Gave it up because you think you need to be some kind of martyr.”
“Goddamnit, that’s the second time you’ve said that. And it’s going to be the last. I’m not trying to be a martyr. I gave up snowboarding because I thought it would be best for you—”
“I never asked you to give up snowboarding for me!”
“Oh, really? And how am I supposed to travel all over the world and take care of you, too? How am I supposed to go up on those mountains knowing I could die and leave you alone? And how the hell am I supposed to get on another board knowing how much you love it, too? Knowing how much you wish it could be you?”
Logan just sneers at me. “You’re an asshole.”
For a minute I think my head might actually explode. “Seriously, I’m the asshole here? I’m the asshole? How the fuck did that happen?”
“Because you never ask. You just assume and you just do. I lost the use of my legs, Ash, not my brain. I’m still me. I still count.”
“I know that!”
“Do you? Do you really? Because you never ask me what I want. You never ask me what I think is best. I never wanted you to feel guilty about boarding. Why the hell do you think I called Tansy to begin with? I love seeing you board. I always have. And yes, I need you around. But there’s Victor and Z and Cam and Luc who can help out when you’re not here. And there’s me. You always forget, there’s me, Ash.”
“I never forget you, Logan.”
“But you do.” He’s not yelling now. He just sounds tired. As tired as I feel. “You’re always trying to do what you think is right for the cripple, but you never stop to ask if it actually is right. For me. Not the kid who’s paralyzed but me. Logan. Your little brother. I’m the same person I was, the same person I’ve always been. But you can’t see that anymore. You can’t see me.”
“That’s not true.” I walk to him then, drop down on my knees beside his bed and pull him into a tight hug. As his arms go around me and he holds me just as fiercely, I realize how long it’s been since we’ve done this. Since I’ve hugged him.
Oh, I carry him around sometimes. Lift him up onto the exam tables at the doctors’ offices. Help him into and out of his chair if he needs it. I offer him a careless fist bump or a pat on the shoulder, but I don’t hug him anymore. I haven’t hugged him, I realize sickly, since those first days in the hospital, when he woke up from the coma.
A fresh wave of guilt washes over me as he buries his face in my neck and I pretend I don’t feel the hot rush of his tears against my skin. Pretend I don’t feel the burn against the back of my own eyelids.
Logan clings to me for long seconds, shaking, and I cling to him just as hard. It’s not until he starts sniffling a little, like he’s trying to get himself under control, that I finally pull back and let him go.
“I’m sorry,” I tell him.
He shrugs. “It’s fine. I overreacted.”
“No.” I grab his chin between my fingers, turn his face to mine. “You didn’t. If this is how you feel, then we need to talk about it. We need to fix it.”
“That’s what I’m saying, Ash. You can’t fix me—”
“I’m not trying to fix you. But this”—I gesture between us—“I’m definitely going to fix this. Because I love you and I have never, for one second, wanted you to be anything but what you are.”
The words are crowding my brain again, crowding my tongue, so I take a minute to figure out exactly what I want to say. “I’m always going to be upset that you’re paralyzed, Logan. And I’m probably always going to feel guilty about it—”
“That’s not—”
I hold a hand up, wait for him to rein his own temper in and listen to me. “But you’re right. I�
��ve been letting what I think you need get in the way of what you actually do need. I read books, talked to your doctors, watched your PT and OT, listened to Victor and Sarah … I’ve done everything I thought I should do. But in all that, I forgot to talk to you. Forgot to listen to you. And for that, I’m sorry. Because you’re right. This is your life and I have no right to try to make all these decisions for you.
“I’ll say that a lot of it is not just because of you being paralyzed. It’s about me trying to be your fucking guardian when I can barely figure my own shit out. I feel so … incompetent. And that’s hard for me. You know? Because I always do have a plan. I always know what I’m supposed to do to make certain things happen. And then, suddenly, I’m in charge of you. Not just your brother, but the person who is supposed to be responsible for your well-being. For making sure that you’re okay.
“And that fucked with my head. I’m not going to lie. It still fucks with my head. Because I do love you, Logan. And I do want what’s best for you. But in the middle of all that, in the middle of dealing with Mom and Dad and your paralysis and everything else, I forgot the most important thing. I’m still your brother. I’m still the guy who taught you to snowboard and you’re the kid who spent most of my teenage years pranking me every way you could.”
Logan’s watching me now, eyes wide and mouth slack, like I’ve somehow managed to surprise him. Which just makes me feel worse, because what I’m saying shouldn’t be a surprise to either of us, yet somehow it is.
“I’m sorry about that. I’m sorry I lost sight of what’s important—”
“No, Ash. It’s okay. You’ve been trying really hard—”
“Maybe too hard. Maybe I need to chill out a little and listen to what you want, for once.”
His eyes go impossibly wider. “Really? You mean that?”
I take a deep breath, run a hand over the back of my neck. “Yeah, Logan, I do.”
“Awesome!”
“But, hey, you’ve got to work with me, too. Because I’m your brother, but I am also your guardian. I will listen to you and what you want and what you think—I promise that. But there are still going to be times when I have to tell you no. And you’re going to have to accept that. I’ll try to be more reasonable, try not to do that unless I really, really have to. But when I do, I need you to listen to why I’m making the decision I’m making. Does that seem fair?”
