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“You want to take a walk?” I ask.
“Sure.” He looks down at my still-swollen ankle. “Is your foot okay?”
“It’s fine.” It is. It looks even better than it did this morning, even after me walking on it all day. That bear brush tea is truly miraculous.
I change into sneakers and take Lincoln out on the walk to the cliff. You would think I’d be scared to be on the same path that resulted in a snake bite last time, but I’m not. I feel invincible today.
When we get to the cliff, I say, “I came here on the anniversary of Mom’s death to read her letter.”
Lincoln walks to the edge of the cliff with me and stares down at the desert scrabble below.
“I reread the letter she wrote me that day, too.”
I steal a glance at Lincoln. I don’t see pain on his face. He’s always seemed so grounded about our mom’s death. It’s weird how we could be twins going through the same thing with such different ways of dealing with it.
“Abe saw me here and thought I was going to jump off the cliff or something. He startled me, and then I did almost fall, but he grabbed me in time.”
Lincoln says nothing. He’s always been an excellent listener.
“The letter went over the edge, but he went down and found it for me. And then we hung out at his family’s cabin, which is a little bit that way.”
I leave out the part about him being a wolf, obviously. Not because I promised Abe. I figure he lost my loyalty to his secret when he acted like a dick. But I don’t want Lincoln to be in danger of getting his mind wiped by a vampire.
“So you two bonded then,” he observes.
“Yeah, I guess. I ended up telling him about Mom and actually cried for the first time since before she died.“
Lincoln nods.“That’s good.“
“Yeah.”
“And then we hooked up at homecoming, as you probably guessed, and we met at his cabin a couple of times. But it turns out, the reason he’s such an asshole is because he has a medical condition that he’s been trying to hide from everyone because he doesn’t wanna look weak.”
Lincoln swings his head to look at me with surprise. “Wow.”
“I know. So today, he was having a seizure in the hall, and when I tried to help, he shit on me. I guess he was ashamed.”
“What an asshole. What an absolute child.”
“I know. I’m totally done with him.”
Except when I say it, it doesn’t feel true.
I don’t feel like I’m done with Abe Oakley. And retelling his story actually gives me a little more compassion for his plight. Not that the way he treated me is okay.
I realize that I am afraid I won’t be able to cry over Abe, just like I couldn’t cry over my mom. But it’s not because I’m broken. I'm not. I’m numb and locked in a cell of my own making. It’s not because I’ve gone flat again. Because I feel strong. And I have this niggling sense that Abe belongs to me.
That’s why I trigger the episodes in Abe. The two of us are inexorably linked. Our fates are locked together. We’re meant for each other somehow. Just like I was meant to get bitten by that snake, and I was meant to drink the tea the old bear brought me.
I’m not sure what makes all of this so clear in my mind, but it is. I seem to have some new broader connection with the world around me. Just like I felt more connected to the kids at school. I feel more connected to the nature around us right now. To this land that my mom found so majestic. And my connection to Abe is one thousand times stronger than my connection to anything else.
“You seem good, actually,” Lincoln says. “Better than you have since Mom got sick.”
I smile. “I know. I feel more like myself than I ever have. And I do have Abe to thank for that because it felt like he sort of woke me up from the numbness and the fog I was living in.”
Lincoln turns to me and holds out his arms. “Come here. Want a hug?“
“Yep.” I step into the circle of his arms.
