“I would’ve been a hell of a lot more scared of what’s happening to me if it weren’t for you.”
That must surprise him, because his breathing slows and I can sense his eyes swing toward me. “What do you mean?”
“I mean that you showed me that this—not just the wheelchair, but everything that’s happened to you, everything you’vesurvived and overcome—doesn’t define you or limit you. Not unless you let it do those things.” I brush my hair out of my face. “Growing up, I used to get so angry at the world for being cruel to me. But the world’s been even crueler to you, and you’ve never once let that slow you down. I admire that about you, Sage. You inspire me.”
His fist unclenches slowly. Through my fingertips on his wrist, I can feel every tendon ease. The leaky radiator breathing evens out into something closer to normal.
“That’s... nice,” he admits. He sounds younger suddenly. “Nobody ever says stuff like that to me. They just say, ‘I’m so sorry this happened to you’ or ‘It must be hard to be brave,’ like I ever had a choice in the matter.”
“Fuck that noise,” I snort. “Bravery isn’t about having a choice. It’s about what you do when youdon’thave one.”
He’s quiet for a moment. Then he says, “Bash used to say something like that.”
“Yeah, well.” I squeeze his hand. “Broken clocks, blind squirrels, and all that.”
Again, he goes quiet. “He really hurt you, didn’t he? My brother, I mean.”
“Yeah,” I confess. “He really did.”
“Do you still love him?”
My hand drifts to my stomach without conscious thought. Sage must notice, because he says, “I wasn’t gonna say anything at first, because I wasn’t sure. But you’re… you’re pregnant, aren’t you?”
I gulp and nod. “Yeah.”
“And it’s Bastian’s?”
I nod again, not trusting my voice this time.
“So that means it’s my… nephew? Niece?”
That, for some reason, makes me laugh. It’s a teary, snotty laugh, but a little giggle, but a little laugh in the midst of all this madness doesn’t strike me as such a bad thing, even if it comes with a few boogers attached. “I’m not sure yet. But yes, you’re gonna be an uncle.”
“I’m gonna be an uncle,” he breathes, like that promotion and change of title hadn’t occurred to him just yet. “Holy shit— er, I mean, holy crap. Is it bad to curse around the baby? Can it hear?”
“Not quite yet,” I say with another chuckle. “I’m only a little over eight weeks along, and according to the textbooks, they can’t hear until twenty-three or twenty-four weeks. Yasmin’s been on my case about cleaning up my language, but I guess we’ve got time until it matters.”
“Holy shit then,” decides Sage. “Does he know? Does he know about the baby?”
“Yeah. He knows.”
“And he’s still being a controlling dickhead who wants to exile us all off to God-knows-where?”
“That’s the one.”
Sage growls low in his chest. “Typical. Absolutely fucking typical.” He sighs again. “He’s scared, isn’t he? That’s why he’s being like this.”
“If you ask me, I’d say he’s pissing-his-pants terrified. But, y’know—in a very Bastian kind of way.” I rub at my sore knees and stretch my legs out in front of me. “For what it’s worth, I’m scared, too.”
“I thought you said you were mad?”
I smack my own knee like I’m a used car salesman whacking the hood of the worst Camry that’s ever been sold. “Buddy, this bad boy can fit so many feelings inside of it. It’d blow your mind if you knew how many emotions I go through on a daily basis. Mad, sad, scared, all of it. I’m the Baskin Robbins of feelings. Truly an endless supply.”
He exhales through his nose, which I think is about as close as I’m getting to a laugh out of him tonight. But I’ll take it. Anything is better than that angry, labored breathing from a few minutes ago, like he was going to have a coronary if he didn’t calm down.
“I don’t know how I’m ever gonna forgive him for leaving me,” he whispers. I’m not quite sure if he’s talking to me or himself, so I stay quiet and give him room to explore what’s going on inside of him. “He just made so many promises after the accident, and it didn’t take him long to break every single one of them. That’s a hard thing to just forget.”
“Forget?” I say. “No, no, no. You can’t forget. Forgetting means you’re letting go of all the things that’ve shaped you. And people like you and me, we can’t do that. We’re held together with Scotch tape and stupid dreams, so if we just start forgetting, the whole operation will fall to pieces. If you ask me, forgetting is off the table.” I hesitate. “But forgiving… Well, maybe there’s a way to make that work.”
