“Well, I didn’t feel much of anything back then, but especially not…” I have to look away, already cringing. “… horny?”
He puffs a surprised laugh. “Baby V.”
I give him a weak shove. “Shut up. Like you don’t know the effect you have on girls.”
He blinks at me, and if I didn’t know better, I’d say he looks almost bashful. “I haven’t been around girls for a long time.”
I remember now how Reyn got all those cut muscles, and my smile slowly bleeds away. I’m almost afraid to know the answer when I ask, “At your school…did they hurt you?”
His forehead creases at the abrupt change of topic. “At Mountain Point?” When I nod, he brushes a thumb over my jaw. “Not in the way you’re thinking.”
I frown. “Then how?”
He sighs, looking away. “It’s not really about rehabilitation there. It’s about…scaring us. Telling us that we’re nothing, making us feel small, worthless. Tell us that, despite the therapeutic mumbo-jumbo, we are defined by our actions. The more you feel like an individual, the more you start feeling rebellious, or falling into your old habits. It’s shitty, and a bit of a mind-fuck, but I don’t know, it’s probably effective for a certain type of kid. Some of those guys made me seem like a fucking do-gooder comparatively, but they didn’t know how much damage I’d done. How much penance I owed.”
I watch him talk, his face growing into that same stony stillness I’ve alternately come to love and loathe. “You didn’t,” I say, capturing his hand in mine. “It was a mistake.”
He looks at me again, eyes dark. “Yeah, I did.”
I shake my head. “I don’t think so.”
“Vandy.” His gaze flicks across my face; cheeks, mouth, nose, chin. “Your turn.”
But suddenly, the thought of telling him makes my stomach hurt. In a small voice, I confess, “I’m scared.”
He tilts his head. “Of what?”
“That it’ll make you believe what all those people at Mountain Point told you,” I admit. “That I won’t be able to have this again.” I pull his arm around my middle, reluctantly meeting his eyes. “That you’ll pull away because you feel guilty and responsible.”
“I am guilty, V.” He pulls me closer, arm tightening around me. “But that’s not going to happen.”
I fidget with the sleeve of his shirt. “Promise?”
He presses a kiss to my forehead and holds it there, muttering against me, “Promise.”
Quietly, I tell him everything. About the first surgery, and how it was the scariest. How I woke up in recovery alone, and I thought I had died. And then the second surgery, weeks later, and how it’d been painful to recover from and ultimately ineffective, and how blindingly angry I was. Not at Reyn, but at the surgeons, for making all these promises they couldn’t keep. For putting me through something so traumatic, for zero gain. Then I tell him about the third, and how it was better after that. The years of PT, the gait training, how slowly I got my strength back. How much work has gone into where I currently am, able to walk without crutches or braces. I tell him about the party Emory threw for me the first time I spent a whole day walking on my own, without any tools to help me, and how he even bought me a cake and balloons. I tell him how high I was through all of it, and how badly I feel about it now, looking back, being unable to muster a fraction of my brother’s enthusiasm.
“He was so happy,” I remember. “He was happy enough for both of us, I guess.”
I hear Reyn’s swallow. “Em’s a good brother.”
“He is,” I agree, nestling my head into the curve of Reyn’s shoulder. “I’m always caught between never feeling grateful enough and always feeling suffocated by him. It’s hard. But I know I’m lucky.”
Reyn whispers, “He’s going to fucking kill me.”
I pull back to look at him, at the dread swirling in his eyes. “Reyn, I can’t—” I touch his face, coaxing him to look at me. “I can’t keep not living my life just because my family is like this. I can’t.” My voice is full of an old, secret fear. “It’s like every day since the accident, I’ve faded, and I’ve just become this ghost of a person. Part of it was the pills, but I know that isn’t all of it. A bigger part is just not being allowed to grow into the person I’m supposed to