I run out of words and just clutch him to me again.
Vin is bashful and pleased. He feels bad about leaving the show early, but it’s clear we three need to be alone together. So Vin ducks back in and pays his and Raff’s tabs and then, just the three of us, we walk home.
It’s an odd walk. Nostalgic, the three of us together like this, but also…very new. Because we’re never going to be like we were.
We’re changed forever. As individuals and as a group.
But also, we’re still us.
When we get home, I make pancakes and Vin makes bacon. Raff sits on the counter and makes us cry.
“Look, not to state the obvious here,” he says. “But this year really sucked.”
We give a soggy laugh.
“And I’m…” he continues. “I’m, like, a very happy person? I don’t wear angry well. It doesn’t look good on me. So I’ve just, sort of, pretended like my arm doesn’t hurt all the fucking time. That it’s, like,finethat my life got destroyed. But…”
“It’s not,” I supply.
“Yes.” He points at me like I’ve just said somethingcompletely genius. “It isnotfine. And it’s not like I needed anything else to make me…more complicated. Look, I know this has been a tough year for you two, but you still had each other. You still had the home you’d built together. You still had the option of rebuilding. Me? Seriously, I think I might be in too many pieces for someone to want the whole package.”
“Raff.” That’s Vin. And he’s not happy his brother feels this way.
“I’m not asking for you to make me feel better,” Raff insists, showing us his palms. “If you never did another thing for me for the rest of my life, I’d still be eternally grateful to both of you. I just need to say it. Thank you.” His eyes are liquid and squeezing shut. “Thank you for being there when the truck—I know it probably makes me selfish. But if you two hadn’t been there with me…I just feel like the thing would have killed me. I just…I know it in here—” He thumps his chest. “That I wouldn’t have survived this without you two.”
Vin takes him by the shoulders in a rough, big-brother sort of way. “Everything you’re saying is wrong,” he tells Raff. And it breaks through Raff’s spiritual dysmorphia like two hands ripping a sheet in two. Raff is laughing through tears.
“Well, what do I do now, then?” Raff asks. “If I’m wrong about all this, then what the helliswrong with me?”
Vin gives him a weightless, certain smile, made possible by a clean-shaven face. “Nothing, dude. You’re perfect.” And he kisses him again, on the forehead.
“That isnothelpful,” Raff says, but he’s got a wry smile on and one hand against his chest. He’s locking it inside, I can tell, this assessment from the person he trusts the most in the world.
I loudly crunch bacon and they both turn to look at me. “What? It’s getting cold!”
And so we eat. And then Raff goes to bed in the guestroom. And it feels good. It feels like, every now and then, he belongs here. Because heisperfect. And so are we.
When Vin (and the Vin squeak) join me in bed, I, unfortunately, have a little river of tears drip-dropping off my nose.
“Oh no,” Vin says, sliding over to hold me.
“I’m okay,” I reassure him. “But your story…this night…I finally realized something.”
“Tell me.” His arms tighten around me, our legs tangle together.
“I realized…and I hate it, Vin. And I don’t want it to be true. But I realized…I’msomad at you.”
“Wait. Really?” He’s pulling back to see my face. Because this wasn’t what either of us was expecting. And also, because I’m calm and sweet. Not how one usually tells another they’re so mad at them.
“Your story tonight…It reminded me of something and I think…I think a lot of the prickliness I’ve been having…I think it’s because I’m mad at you.”
“Okay…well…what did it remind you of?”
“It was something I heard in the hospital. What you said tonight in your story. Yourbeautifulstory…it brought back this memory…I heard one of the paramedics who brought us in talking with the ER doctor. They were talking about me. The ER doctor said,It’s a miracle she doesn’t have a head injury.And the paramedic said—” My voice breaks and I lift Vin’s hand to my lips. “And the paramedic said,Yeah, her husband was able to get his hand under her head to break her fall.”
“Right,” Vin says slowly, trying to read me.
“And then I looked at your knuckles, they were bandaged, and I wouldn’t even know until the bandages came off a few weeks later how bad the scrapes really were, almost down to thebone,Vin. But it was enough, then, just to see the bandages.”
