But his hands were still shaking, because forks were sharp, too, and countertops had edges, and his apartment was oldenough that he had a gas stove. Besides, Aaron no longer kept a beard. He’d want to shave.
His phone was another blur as he pulled it out of his pocket, his plans to rack up as many hours as he could beta testing the latest video game he’d been sent going straight out the window. Oscar thought about flinging himself out, too, while he was at it, but he couldn’t. Not anymore.
His eyes snagged on the hoodie hanging by the bathroom door.
No. This time, Oscar wanted to stay.
Christina had changed the potted plant in her office, and Oscar wasn’t sure how to feel about it. He liked tracing the brown spots on the leaves, but this one was new and waxy and pristine—his favorite kind of green.
Oscar didn’t like perfection anymore, things untouched, flawless. He liked Aaron with his squinting eyes when he tried to read from afar without his glasses, he liked scars on the chest that he kissed, shoulders covered in freckles of all sizes.
“Thanks for seeing me on such short notice,” he said, reaching for the coffee she’d poured.
He normally had water at these things, but Oscar had left the apartment so quickly in the morning, not even a note to say goodbye after their fight, that he would drink a gallon of human blood if it meant having a taste of Aaron.
“There was a gap in my schedule, and even if there hadn’t been…I could ask someone else to move to a different time. I’m sorry about the last time this happened. I’m sorry I wasn’t available when you needed me.” Christina swung her leg, hands wrapped around her own mug.
In the movies, therapists took notes on fancy leather-bound notebooks or clinical sheets of paper strapped to clipboards. Christina didn’t do any of that shit. She’d written down a couple of things on their first appointment, but after that, it had been this way between them.
“Your hair’s nice,” Oscar said, eyes darting to the thick blonde strands now brushing Christina’s collarbone. He leaned into the armchair, tapping the arm with the fingers on his unoccupied hand.
“Yes, my girlfriend thinks so, too. But you’re here for a reason. What’s going on?” Christina arched her perfectly groomed eyebrows at him, pink lips pursing as she invited him to talk.
So Oscar did.
And what followed was a cataract of confessions about his shortcomings, a tapestry woven of all the patterns in which Oscar had failed as a human being.
“I’m not him,” he said, shaking his head. “I’m not Papa. I can’t watch Aaron crumble andsmilethrough my tears, pretend I’m laughing. I can’t see his pain and not cry. I’m not strong enough. I’m not.” Oscar shifted around on the chair. “Christina, I don’t know how I’m going to manage studying and passing my tests and doing assignments and working full-time hours. Because I’ll have to. If this thing decides to attack him, I’m going to have to pay for all of it. I’m not sending him anywhere. He stays home. With me. For as long as his doctor allows it. No matter what. I can’t. I’ll have to get a live-in nurse. I’ll have to, Christina, I?—”
Oscar gasped a breath as all of it caught up with him. The truth of what he’d said slapped him in the face, warming his cheeks, making his teeth ache. They felt big in his mouth, raw, like he’d just bitten into ice, like he’d just taken a big gulp of soda after a tub of vanilla ice cream.
If this thing. Oscar had already turned it into something, had already assumed that Aaron was right, that he was goingto get sick. He’d already pinned him with a diagnosis they didn’t have, had already imagined himafter. How awful must he be to?—
“Oscar, I need you to breathe.”
Christina was no longer in her chair. For the first time since Oscar had stepped into her office a few years before, she had crossed the distance between them, that invisible line that marked the boundary between her and her patients, and she was crouching in front of his armchair, hands reaching out to grasp his. Christina nodded and Oscar took them, not minding very much about the sweat on his palms.
“I’m awful,” he mumbled.
“You’re wonderful,” Christina said, shaking her head. “And you’re going to figure this out together. But first, you’re going to remember everything you’ve taught yourself about walking back from the worst-case scenario and letting it play out.”
“Yeah.” Oscar nodded, pressing his lips together, tooth snagging on his lower lip. “I’m going to have to learn how to carry it for him when he can’t. The waiting as much as the possibility.”
“Good, we’re getting somewhere.” Christina released Oscar’s hands and let out a sigh, walking back to her chair and settling. “Let’s focus on how to wait for a result, how to get the courage to ask for one, before we make plans for something we don’t yet know is real.”
“I will.” Oscar nodded, chewing on the inside of his cheek. “Hey, I don’t want to cut this short, but I have to go.”
Oscar left before Christina could say anything back. By the time he’d reached the ground floor, he’d transferred her the money. By the time he got home, Christina had returned it.
Christina: That was fifteen minutes. Here if you need a call.
Oscar would respond when he was in the headspace for it. For now, he would focus on Aaron, on making this easier for him—better—in the small ways that he could.
When Aaron’s steps sounded on the landing, the squeak of his sneakers so familiar now that Luigi jumped off his place on the amp and headed to the door to wait for him, Oscar was getting their freshly ordered kebabs from the oven, where he’d set them to stay warm.
All the knives were back where they’d started the day, sitting in their homes inside Oscar’s kitchen drawers and in the knife block Grandma had given him. The scissors were back in place, too, and the box cutters. In the end, Christina had been right. Oscar was only doing what his mother had done—hiding away the symptom instead of focusing on the cause.
Aaron wouldn’t hurt himself, no matter how many weapons they had at home, because Aaron wasn’t Oscar, and he wasn’t alone.
