“Of being pissed off,” he said, his eyes firing shrapnel at the ceiling. “Of nothing making sense. Of wanting to scream or hit things or . . . whatever, all the time.” His passion made him cough, his abraded throat constricting around the failure of his act.
“But, Trey . . .” I wanted to say something powerful to fix his world so it wouldn’t be so treacherous, but I knew that his scars—like mine—required more than words.
“He’s supposed to be dead to me, Shell. I’ve done everything I could to make him dead to me, but he keeps . . . he keeps coming back.”
“He’s gone, Trey. He’s been gone forever.”
“But not in my head.”
I knew what he meant, but my indignation and distress outweighed my sympathy. “So you tried to kill yourself?” My voice was hard with disbelief. “You decided to bail out on me and leave me alone? Thanks a whole lot!”
“I wasn’t—”
“You promised me! You swore you’d stick with me.” I tried to stand, but my muscles were too stunned by the past twenty-four hours to lift me out of my chair. I felt electrocuted by horror, dismantled by sorrow.
“Shell—”
“We haven’t heard from him in four years, Trey.”
“I know. But he’s in my head. He’s—in—my—head,” he said again, anxiety reverberating in his voice. “I can’t get him out of my head.”
I tried to think of something comforting to say, but nothing came to mind. It was Trey who was supposed to be the strong one, Trey who was supposed to have the answers, Trey who was supposed to convince me, as he had done so many times, that life was worth fighting for.
“Did something happen?” I asked, desperate to know the impetus that had sent him hurtling into the abyss of self-destruction. “Should I have seen something . . . or known something?”
He shook his head. “It’s just too much,” he said, and his voice held the forlorn emptiness of an abandoned home. “I try to hate him so much that he won’t matter anymore, but . . . it’s like he’s still watching me and forcing me to be who he wants me to be.” His eyes roiled with need and anger and pain. “But I don’t want that. I don’t want anything he wants anymore.” Tears welled in his eyes for the first time since he’d tried to end his life. “And then sometimes . . .” He swallowed convulsively, averting his eyes.
“What?”
He shook his head and bit his lip. I laid my forehead against his arm and listened to him breathing. After a few moments, he said, “Sometimes I look at myself and all I see is him. And when it gets really bad,” he added raggedly, “when it gets really bad, you look at me like you see him too.”
I raised my head and opened my mouth to protest, but the honesty of his gaze halted my disclaimers. He was right. There had been seconds, fleeting seconds, when his incoherence and anger had revived the fear and guilt I’d so often felt around my father. “I know you’re not Dad,” I said quietly, stroking his arm with my hand. “It’s just . . .”
“I know, but I could be. You know? I think I could be.” He sighed.
I sighed too as I contemplated the tortuous journey that had led us to this place—Trey in a hospital bed, broken and confused, and me at his side, relieved and terrified.
“I never once thought you were him,” I said again with all the conviction of my fear. “Never once—not even when you did things that weren’t like you.”
“Okay.” It was a mechanical response, devoid of faith. He didn’t know how to trust me. His self-condemnation left no room for extenuation.
“Never once, Trey. I promise you.” I squeezed his arm to force his attention. “And if you’d succeeded—if you’d died . . .” A sob lodged in my throat, and all I could do was continue to convince him with the passion in my eyes. I could tell he was far from believing.
When I found my voice again, I took a deep breath and asked, “What do you think he wanted you to be?”
It took him a while to answer. He looked toward the window and his eyes got distant. “I don’t know,” he finally said. “A world-class businessman. A soccer star. Or something else I’m not.”
“So you did this to get even with a dad we haven’t heard from in four years?” I touched his bandages