it was barely audible. “And I’ve never had that. Or at least, not that I could remember.”
She winced, trying to turn to face him, so he carefully tucked a pillow behind her back and shifted around, moving to the other end of the couch, easing next to her propped-up foot and sitting so he could see her more easily.
“You told me a story once,” she said. “So, I’m going to tell you one now.”
He nodded.
“My brother was born just a year after me.” Her throat worked. “Chance and I were Irish twins, but in reality, we were more like real twins. Babies at the same time, and once we were both walking and running, we hit most of those kid milestones at the same time—learning to read, playing catch, silly things like singing songs and dancing. He was ahead, I was behind. Always. He rode his bike first, tackled the scary obstacles at the park, the mean kids at school. He was . . . larger than life, and really, really good at everything. It was easy to get lost in his shadow, easy to disappear.” Her eyes met his and drifted away. “My parents didn’t notice when I scored a goal in soccer because he scored three, or scraped my knee learning to ride my bike because he was launching himself down steps or curbs or finding some new obstacle to tackle.”
Ben reached over and grasped her hand, ran his finger over the back of it.
“And I probably should have been jealous of him, but Chance was . . . wonderful and I loved him. He had this spirit that surrounded him, a cloud that attracted people to him like flies. He was confident, bordering on cocky, but he was also kind. He didn’t pick on people, even if they were . . . pale shadows of him.”
Ben squeezed.
“Then he got sick,” she whispered. “Or maybe he was always on the edge of that. He lived a big life, but he also lived big downs. Always. And when we were ten—well, he was ten and I was almost eleven—things turned darker. Those lows grew until there were hardly any highs, until he couldn’t get out of bed, until he’d lost joy in everything. Wouldn’t go to school, wouldn’t live. And my parents started bringing him to doctors, rightfully so. Therapists and medical doctors, so many specialists that it almost became an obsession.”
She stared at the TV, blank as it was. “There wasn’t a day he didn’t spend with the doctors, or that my parents weren’t researching, or on the phone searching for a way to make him better. Therapy didn’t help, not for long anyway. He’d dive again, and they’d start over, but they couldn’t get the medication right. He’d seem fine for a few days and then suffer.”
A deep breath released slowly. “For ten years we lived and breathed that, everything on hold, all of us just barely existed. I didn’t do anything but go to school and come home, and even at school, I existed as a buffer between Chance and anything that might knock him off track. If he couldn’t go one day, I didn’t go. If he needed to leave and go home, I brought him home or drove him when I was old enough.”
A tear trailed down her cheek, and he longed to wipe it away, to take her in his arms, but he didn’t want to stop her from telling her story.
So, he just clung to her hand and offered the only thing he could.
He listened.
“But eventually, I just couldn’t do it anymore. I’d already delayed going to college, had stayed and gone to the community one in our hometown because I couldn’t leave him, not when leaving might unbalance him, not when I wouldn’t be there to protect him.” She shook her head. “Then I couldn’t breathe, found myself not wanting to. Instead, I was willing to let myself slip down and not exist and . . . that finally snapped me out of it.”
“You left.”
She nodded. “I had to.”
He squeezed her hand again. “Yes, you did.”
“I went off. I had two great months. It was amazing living in the dorms, surrounded by people who didn’t want anything of me. And then . . .” Ben’s throat seized, but he didn’t press, just held her hand as she gathered her strength. “He killed himself.”
His breath hissed out of him. “Oh, baby,” he whispered. “I’m so sorry.”
“My parents . . . they didn’t