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“I’m tired.” He looked down at his fingers, which were curled into themselves, prawn-like. “And in pain. All the damn time. I just want it to stop. I’m ready for it to stop. Even if I wasn’t ...” He took a labored breath. “Our lungs? They’re a muscle too. I’m sure you know that. Mine are slowing down, making it difficult for me to breathe. I’m at a thirty-percent capacity right now. Which is ... not great.”
“What about a lung transplant?” I leaned forward, clutching his hand.
Charlie laughed, then coughed. “I ain’t young and have a deadly disease. I’ll never qualify.” Silence blanketed the room for a moment. “Goodbyes are hard, angel, I know. But this is what makes great hellos so significant.”
I buried my face in my hands and began sobbing uncontrollably. When I’d first walked in here, I couldn’t imagine Charlie would tell me something like that.
I thought he’d confess to drinking a bit too much, or to a mini heart attack that would finally push him in the right direction, of living sober and eating meals that weren’t frozen. I was entirely unprepared for what he’d just hit me with.
“You said this is the end.” My weeping had subsided some. “How close are you to said end?”
“A few more weeks. A month, maybe? I’ve already contacted my landlady and told her the apartment’s all hers to rent out.”
I moaned into my palms, knowing I needed to be strong for him and somehow still shamefully allowing myself to break. My thoughts spun into a messy knot. He was too young. Too good to die. He was my only friend in New York. And if my suspicion was true ... he had so much more to live for. An entire human to dedicate his life to.
As if reading my mind, Charlie cleared his throat and tried to scratch the back of his shoulder.
“Now about that other thing we were going to discuss ...”
I forced myself to look up. I was now furious with myself for not paying attention to the small clues. To his limited range of motion. To the way he sometimes slurred. To the fact that he’d forget basic things I’d told him about my life.
“It’s about Riggs.” He winced.
I was nauseous with fear, having put together the picture in my head.
“Huntington’s ...” He swallowed hard. “It’s an inherited disease.”
I closed my eyes.
This was his admission.
His confirmation that my theory was correct.
It was madnotto notice it, even though on paper, Riggs and Charlie were from different states, places, coasts, and backgrounds; if you put them both in the same room, they looked like a mirror image of one another. They had the same height, the same build, the same golden, striking hair. The same eyes—blue with golden flecks swirling around the pupils, like tiny oil spills—and the same Roman nose. They spoke in the same low, sexy baritone. They both moved like panthers in the savanna, out to catch their next prey. They were passionate about the same things: nature, photography, extreme sports. They drank the same alcohol, had the same tics, and had the same addictive laugh. Based on their case, nature versus nurture had a clear answer: nature all the way. They’d lived their entire lives apart, and yet they were practically identical twins.
My muscles tightened. “When did you know?”
Charlie tipped his head back, looking anguished. “That he was mine?”
“Yes.”
“That very first second. That time he slipped through the entrance door of our building. It was like staring into a mirror thirty years ago. It knocked the breath out of me. All the times afterward, I waited for him to say something about it. He never did.”
“He could hardly know, though, could he?” Fresh anger slammed into me, and I momentarily forgot Charlie was sick. “Why would his mind even go there?”
“You’re right,” he said grimly. “It shouldn’t. He shouldn’t even be thinking about me at all.”
An avalanche of questions swirled inside me—why did he leave? Why did he never look for Riggs? What happened the night of Riggs’s mother’s death? But ultimately, I didn’t have the right to know anything before Riggs did. Even having this conversation felt like betraying him.
“When are you going to tell him?” My voice turned metallic and cold.
“When?”His eyes widened. “Never, angel. Why would I do that to him?”
“Because you’re his father!” I roared. “He deserves to know.”
“He’d never forgive me. Both for deserting him and for telling him.” Charlie’s chin wobbled. I couldn’t deny that he was probably right. “And I wouldn’t blame him. What’s the point in telling him? More heartache? More disappointment? He’s done well for himself. I always knew he’d be all right, with his granddad and everything, but Riggs surpassed my expectations and became an accomplished artist all by himself.”
What did he mean about his grandfather? Why did he know Riggs would be okay? Before I had the chance to ask, he continued.
