heavy, when Jeremy’s whisper danced across the silence. “I love you, wild one.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
Jeremy
Savy was out of the hospital and riding shotgun in my car. It’d been four weeks since everything had gone to shit with my brother. She’d refused to press charges on the stipulation that Nathan be sent to an inpatient facility for no less than one year. She told my mom she loved him, and she wanted him to find peace. My mother agreed immediately. After that Savy, told the cops she wouldn’t press charges, and she refused to testify against him. Without her as a witness, the DA wasn’t going to pursue the case. Savy had once again saved my brother.
Mom was contrite and apologetic. All our parents were. They saw how wrong they’d been to leave Savy and Nathan on their own, letting them deal with adult problems when they were children. There was irreparable damage done, but the future no longer looked so bleak.
Savy was moving into her dorm room at Emerson next week and was going to start seeing a therapist once a week. She needed to get over her trauma, and she needed to explore why she allowed herself to get so lost that Nathan became her whole world.
I was getting my own place near Northeastern with a couple of my buddies from the track team. Savy and I were still entirely in love. I was looking forward to the coming school year with my girl. We’d be away from our parents, and away from Nathan. We’d both be free to be exactly who we wanted. If Savy wanted to rush a sorority and party her nights away, then I’d be right by her side cheering her on. I still wanted her to do what made her happy. I hoped I’d always be one of those things.
We were too young to talk about forever, but that didn’t mean that I didn’t think about it, didn’t wish for it. Savy had spent her whole life tied to a guy, I figured she deserved all the freedom she could handle before she tied herself to another one.
She forgave our parents, she forgave Nathan, and, I hoped, with the help of the therapist, she’d eventually forgive herself. That was the big one. The most important. Even after Nathan had attacked her, she still took some of the blame. She told me we’d hurt him too big, that she’d led him on too long. I told her she was wrong. She didn’t lead him on, she loved him the only way she could. She loved him and kept the rest of us safe. We didn’t deserve her, not my mom, and not her parents. I hoped she’d be able to work through that. I hated that she didn’t see she did nothing wrong.
I promised her I’d spend all our days together making it up to her for my complicity in allowing her to shoulder everything Nathan. She had no business being responsible for him, and that was on all of us. The adults most of all, but I knew my brother was always on the edge and had no control. I should’ve pushed our mother to make sure he got the mental health care he needed.
Today was one of the days I was doing something for her peace of mind.
Savy wanted to go visit Nathan before we moved away. She wanted to see for herself that he was okay. I supposed a love like the one she cultivated for my brother had an enduring loyalty. Loving him shaped her into the selfless wild beauty that she was today, and for that, I was grateful.
“You ready?” We were parked in front of his facility, sitting quietly side by side and holding hands.
“No.” She squeezed my fingers. “I’m nervous.”
“Tell me what’s making you feel that way.” I wanted to know all her emotions, always. No holding back, not after the things we’d endured.
“I’m nervous that he won’t look like himself, that he won’t sound the same. I’m scared he’ll be so medicated he can’t function, and he won’t even recognize me.” She was staring out the window, her eyes searching the big brick building looming beside us.
My dad never wanted to medicate Nathan because he had the same fears as Savy was having now. “Our dad used to say the exact same thing.”
“He did?”
“Yeah, he did.” It didn’t shock me that she wouldn’t recall that. She and Nathan were so young when he died. But maybe somewhere, in