Chapter Twenty-SevenThiago
I didn’t recognize myself. Waking and seeing her there… It was the most wonderful thing that could ever have happened to me. But nothing works out the way you expect, and nothing is so simple, especially not when you wake up after being in a coma for two years.
Two years!
Fuck, it felt like two days for me. I was disoriented and lost at first, but then the memories came back in sharp detail, and I remembered how it all had gone down: the shooting, the fear, the desperation, the need to get Kami and her brother out of there, the risk I ran when I went back inside to save my brother. I knew it was impossible, practically a suicide mission, but it had worked—or almost.
I had made peace with the fact that going back in there would mean my death. I knew it would be frightening, and I knew someone would end up hurt, but if I could save Taylor’s life, that would be worth it.
But I never thought I could get shot in the head and survive, let alone spend two years in a coma.
Kam was different now. The way she looked at me was different. She was an adult now, an adult who had seen too much. She was hiding so much pain, it was hard to be around her. She looked the same, but she had lost the innocence and tenderness of the girl who used to look at me through her bedroom window.
I loved her. Dammit, I loved her like crazy, but when I looked at myself and the person I’d become, all I felt was contempt.
It was hard to look in the mirror and see my body so ravaged. I was so pale and skinny, I didn’t even recognize myself in my own reflection. But that was the least of it. The worst thing was losing control over my body, feeling clumsy, freezing up, not finding the right words to express myself. My brain was still asleep somehow, lethargic, dazed, and I thought it would never be the same.
I started reading up and talking to the doctors to try to understand what was going on. They told me to be hopeful, that with time and rehab, I could be the person I used to be,probably. They never quite promised it, and if I couldn’t get back to one hundred percent, I didn’t feel capable of being with her. I refused to burden her for the rest of her life.
I treated her badly. I can see that now. She didn’t deserve someone like me, someone so full of rage, so dark and depressed, angry and wounded—someone incapable of considering anyone but himself.
There was no space in my head for her because all I could think about was getting over what had happened to me since I’d been in the coma. But now I understand why I was like that, why I didn’t care about anything else.
It was for her. I did it for her.
I wanted to be the person I’d been before because that was the only way of getting her back, having her in my life, being able to love her the way she deserved. The waywedeserved, finally having our shot, our opportunity, with nothing standing in our way.
For a year, I was a stranger to her.
She called, but I didn’t pick up, and eventually she stopped calling.
I was thankful at first. It was a relief, because rejecting her over and over was killing me inside. But after a few days, I started pining away for another of those missed calls. If she’d given up, that could only mean one thing: Kam had moved on. Without me. Just as I had told her to.
Things were different with my brother. He was with me throughout my recovery. He never left my side, through all my fits of anger, all those moments when I wanted to throw in the towel.
“You’ve got to get her back, Thiago. Otherwise, what was the point of all this?” he told me one day when I was at my lowest and I really wanted to give up.
“I don’t matter to her anymore,” I said, taking a drag on my cigarette.
I’d started smoking again. It was stupid, but it was a stupid thing that helped me relax.
“The fact that she’s living a normal life again doesn’t mean that she doesn’t love you. I’ve never seen anyone fight for someone the way she fought for you,” Taylor said. “You mean everything to her. And as much as it hurts me to admit it, you need to be together. I know that. You’ve got to get her back, and to do that, you’ve got to get better.”
So I did. And my brother was my rock. He came to see me whenever he could, and we spent hours together talking. I noticed that when Kam came up, it hurt less and less, but I also got scared when he told me she was looking good, hanging out with friends, going to basketball games, even partying.
What he never mentioned was whether she was going out with anyone, and I never asked.
I couldn’t worry about that. I had to focus on my recovery above all else.
It took a whole year for my body to feel somewhat back to normal, and even then, I still hadn’t made a complete recovery.
One day, my brother, my mother, and I were sitting on our front porch, enjoying the sun. I was complaining about my cane, which I still couldn’t walk well without. Taylor said, “I don’t know, man, I think it gives you some sex appeal. Like a professor or something.”
Our mother couldn’t help but beam as she looked back and forth between us.
“Do you?” I asked, lifting it up and poking him in the stomach with it.
His abs were rock-hard. He was still in such great shape. It was no surprise they’d just signed him for the NBA G League.
