tell you this.” He lowered his voice slightly, his eyes gentler now. “Ma’s not okay. She’s still as sick as she was yesterday, whether they call it cancer or sarco-whatever-the-fuck. And she’s still taking the same awful drugs. She might have to take them forever, Nate. So just because she’s not terminal, doesn’t mean you can’t feel like you’re falling apart right now. And I said the same thing to her. Don’t think you have to feel better. You don’t have to feel anything. Let yourself hurt sometimes.”
Nate blinked blearily at the pile of shot glasses stacked in front of them. “When did you get so smart?”
Zach laughed. “I don’t know. Maybe when I started hanging out with Hannah?”
Hannah. The tenuous peace Nate had found in the last few minutes was disturbed by the way his brother said her name. “What’s going on with you guys, anyway? Are you still trying to…”
Zach sighed. “Want to know a secret?”
If that secret concerns you, Hannah, and anything other than extremely innocent and platonic friendship, absolutely not.
Unfortunately, Zach seemed to take Nate’s silence as a Yes. “I’m not into Hannah.”
Nate jolted. The words took a moment to fully sink in. His first, ridiculous instinct was to say, Why the hell not? Are you high?
But he managed to choke that down in favour of a non-committal, “Oh?”
“I should be,” Zach said. “I really like her. She’s funny. And she’s hot. So hot. I mean, she’s got that—”
“Alright, I get it.” Please don’t make me hit you when we’re getting on so well. “So what’s the problem?”
Zach sighed. “I don’t know. I think something’s wrong with me. I just can’t get into anyone, you know? I see people, and I think Yeah, you’re cute. You’ll do. In theory, anyway. But then in reality, I just don’t want to. Christ, I haven’t had sex in about six months.”
Nate didn’t point out that he regularly went without sex for six months. It didn’t seem tactful. Instead, he said firmly, “There’s nothing wrong with you. Okay?”
“Whatever,” Zach mumbled.
“I’m serious. Whatever it is, doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with you.” Nate paused as he figured out how to ask his next question politely. “When you say you haven’t had sex, do you mean that you… can’t…”
It took a second for his meaning to filter into Zach’s tipsy brain. “Oh, no, I can. Everything’s, you know, working. I just don’t want to.”
“Huh.” Nate sat back, thinking on everything he knew about his little brother. “That is unusual, for you.”
“I know,” Zach said glumly.
“How do you feel otherwise? Is anything else different?”
He shrugged. “Not really.”
“Hm.” Nate was honestly at a loss. He might be biased, but he was of the opinion that if Hannah Kabbah couldn’t inspire proper lust in Zach, no-one could. “Sorry, man. I don't know. Should we drink some more?”
“It’s okay,” Zach sighed. “And yeah. Yeah, we should.”
So they did.
11
Hannah sat in the dimly-lit living room, the kids’ fort—still going strong—casting strange shadows on the walls. When she heard the front door creak open, she almost leapt out of her skin. But by the time Nate appeared in the doorway, she was composed, her oversized cardigan pulled tight over her chest.
“You’re up.” He didn’t sound surprised.
“Are you okay?” she asked. It was a ridiculous question, when he was standing there swaying on his feet. He seemed small, somehow, even though his broad shoulders filled the doorframe. Nate definitely wasn’t okay. But she couldn’t say What the hell happened? Tell me everything, the way she wanted to, so silly questions would have to do.
After a moment’s hesitation, he came closer. Hannah realised he was drunk after his second step, and by the time he sprawled onto the sofa beside her, she decided that he was actually wrecked. That didn’t do much to ease the frantic pounding in her heart, the pounding that hadn’t stopped since he’d disappeared earlier that day.
But then he said, “Ma doesn’t even have cancer.”
And she was too astonished to feel anything but numb. Somehow, she managed to say, “What?”
So, in meandering, rambling, bitter tones, he told her everything. It didn’t take her long to realise why his words were so slurred and his eyes so hazy.
“Fuck,” she breathed. “Fuck. Wow. What? Wow. I’ve never even heard of that. What’s it called? Sarco—”
“Sarcoidosis,” he said, only stumbling over the word slightly. “I Googled it a few hours ago. The results weren’t great. I have decided to save further research for another day.” He sounded so controlled,