What if I couldn’t see it all these years? I was blinded by the very real love that Wizard and I shared. A love that ran as deep as anything I’d ever known. A love I’d trust my life to. The love of best friends. The love of a brother I never had. Two souls who justunderstoodeach other.
I felt that same love and acceptance from Wizard’s grandfather. They were my whole world. They were my safe people and safe places.
What if James wasn’t wrong?The question keeps slamming in my brain, but now it morphs.What if you were wrong? What if you were always wrong? What if you couldn’t see it?
“Esme.” Wizard’s voice is strong, but there’s an undercurrent of caution.
I crash back into myself and find him staring right into my face. I’m looking back. He can read everything flickering across mine, but I can also read his. His jaw clenches and his eyes widen. All the things I couldn’t see before are now so obvious that terror rushes through me.
Oh my god. Oh my fucking god.
I scramble up and back away. I bend over, trying to suck in air. I’m going to throw up. I’m going to— I don’t know, I just can’t breathe.No. No, no, no.This is all wrong. It can’t be true. If it is, then it’s not just my life that I wasted. All those years, it washistoo. It wasn’t just me I hurt. It was the best man that I’ve ever known. It was me, for years, asking for advice on how to make a life withJames. Asking Wizard, who didn’t just love me like a friend or a sister. Wizard always, always tried to make it better. He was patient. Kind. Endlessly so. He shared his life with me. His grandpa. His whole world. And all of his heart, including all the parts I couldn’t ever see.
I stab a finger at him, anger bursting out of me because I’msoscared, and anger is easier to reach for. “You called me a martyr! What about you? What thefuck?”
“Esme!” Wizard stands. He steps off the blanket and puts his hands up. I have no idea why he’s doing that. Why he’s slowly approaching, one step after another, like I’m a wild animal. “You’re gonna have a panic attack, and I don’t want you anywhere near the edge.”
I glance behind me. I don’t remember moving. I’m not anywhere close, but if I kept going, I would be. I freeze in place, my heart racing, my whole body quaking. Was it ever uncertainty that was my problem, or was it always fear? Was I scared to peel back the layers that I knew were there all along because I knew what was underneath could break me, or could I just not see it? Was I truly that blind? I have no idea what it’s like to take a step forward with this knowledge. I don’t know how to exist with this.
“Esme,” Wizard urges. “Please. Come here. We can… talk.”
I take two steps forward so that he stops panicking about the roof dropping away, but I wrap my arms around myself and collapse into all the endless holes inside of me. Is this even happening? Is it real?
Wizard is so still. It doesn’t appear like he’s even breathing. His shoulders are hunched and rigid, like he needs to shield himself from me.
If he wanted to do that, he should have startednearly two decades ago.
“There’s nothing to talk about.” My stomach drops out and my voice escapes as half a sob. This is more than the ground dropping out from underneath of me. This is the whole world falling away. “You’re going to try to tell me that it’s not true, but if I look back and look differently, I can seeallofit. I missed it then. I was looking at friendship. How could younothavesaidanything? How could you havesufferedlike that?”
Wizard’s hands clench and unclench at his sides. He might be still, half frozen on the outside, but on the inside, I know just how much is going on. He’s fighting to keep the roof from dropping out under him too. We’re nowhere near the edge, but we’re right on it, both of us straddling it, ready to fall.
“All those times James joked about you being hopelessly in love with me, so much so that you were ruined for anyone or anything else… it was all true. Please tell me you tried to move on. That you wanted to. That you have.”
“I have.”
No. No, no, no. That’s bullshit.
“You’re lying. I can see it. This is insane.” I give up trying to hold it together the way he is and throw my hands in the air. “I’m going to go crazy!” I shout. “How is this happening? Do you have any idea how much worse this makes everything?”
“Yes! I do!” He takes one step forward, crumbling and shattering, and finally matching my intensity on the outside. “I do know.Youwere never supposed to know. At least not yet. Maybe not ever.”
“Why didn’t you say something?” I repeat, plaintive. Lost. Sad. My voice is full of cracks, as many as I am.
“Because you were always with my brother!” Wizard yelps. “What was I supposed to do? Tell you he was trash? You knew that. Tell you to just give up and come be with me, that we could set up a life, and I’d do anything to try and make you happy? That I’d be as pathetic as it took because my whole world was you? That there wasn’t an atom of my body that you weren’t a part of? That I knew the exact shape of you, even if I’d never properly held you in my hands because I felt so strongly that my soul was made for yours?”
“Yes!” My face aches. I lift my hands to try to figure out where this pain is coming from. They come away wet. So wet that I’m drowning myself silently. I swallow. Hard. I force myself to do it again and again, until air flows down my throat and enters my screaming lungs. It doesn’t do much, but it does keep me alive. Physically. Inside, I feel like I’m dying.
“You would have said that I deserved better,” Wizard says calmly. Patiently. He’s right. He’s always known me better than I’ve known myself. “You would have said that our lives were going in different directions. You would have clung toJames because you weren’t ready to let go. I couldn’t push you into knowledge that you weren’t ready for.”
“I might have understood,” I whimper. There’s no chance that I would have, and that’s what fractures me right down to my soul. “I can’t… I can’t believe you’ve been living like this,” I stammer, fresh tears streaming hot down my cheeks. “This is too much. I can’t do this right now.” That’s rich, and I know it. I can’t do it right now? What abouthim? For once in my life, I want to be selfless, but I can’t do it because I have this knowledge filling up my body to overflowing, and I don’t know how to fix what I’ve so badly ruined. The past is gone. There’s nothing in it that can fix the present or give me a future.
I wasn’t even half worthy of Wizard’s love back then. His love of any kind.
Wizard’s eyes lock with mine. They’re so green. Fathomless. Bottomless. Endless. They’re the horizon that bleeds into a sky, that line of the bay that I stared at not so many nights ago, and wondered if the world went on forever.
He’s carried this knowledge for literally half our lives. Has he been ruined by it? He’s not hard. He hasn’t calcified or turned to stone around his broken heart. He’s always been so good. So kind. He didn’t hesitate to help me. He served his country and he came back to our hometown and found this brotherhood, and he gave all of himself to be a part of it. He’s loved here and he loves in return. Does that seem like someone who is broken?
It doesn’t. Wizard isn’t like me. He’s unfathomable. He’s never looked at the world as an unfriendly, frightening place. He’s never flinched away from the hard bits, including the truth. He’s not a coward. He’s nothing like me.
