“That’s not fair,” I said, feeling anger rise within me. “I don’t see anybody acting like nothing is happening or going on their ‘merry way.’ I’m over there how many days a week to check on her.”
“Okay, and where the hell is my brother? Huh?” he spat. “He just packs his things and hightails it out of Dodge when she needs him the most, yet he’s still the hero.”
A door opened and shut down the hall.
“Keep your voice down,” I told Rowan.
He was breathing hard, looking down at me like he’d run a marathon. “I’m just over this shit, you know?”
“I know,” I said. “But I hope you get that getting wasted every night is doing nothing to help.”
I’d told Luke I hadn’tseenRo wasted recently, but something made me suspect that meant very little. When Ro didn’t say anything to refute this, I knew I’d guessed right.
“You’re just giving her something more to worry about,” I said.
Ro sank into the seat again. “I just wish I coulddosomething. Why couldn’t she need a kidney or something? I have that. I’dgiveher that.”
I blinked back tears as I reached for Ro’s wrist.
“She knows that. I know that,” I told him.
“I come out here every day and I train. I go into the gym four times a week and do even more training, and I just don’t know what the point of any of it is. I’m not saving lives. I’m not changing anything. What’s thepoint?”
“Think about Roger and Serena and Rafa, all the people you grew up watching. Think about the way it made you feel when they won or lost.That’sthe point. If you care about something, it matters.”
Ro swiped at his eyes. “I don’t know.”
“I do,” I said. “Plus, if you quit after all the money your parents have put in, after all the matches you’ve made her watch, Mel will actually skin you alive.”
He laughed. “I just don’t see how anything is ever going to be okay when she’s gone.”
“I don’t think it will be,” I admitted. “Like, it’s going to suck so much.”
Just thinking about it—a world without the sound of Mel’s voice, without her hugs, without her humor—got me choked up.
“We’ll all just have to stick together,” I said. “That’s what will make her happy.”
Ro stood and sniffed his shirt. “Better go change for real now.”
“Me too,” I said, standing. We walked together, but when it was time for him to turn left for the men’s locker room, he didn’t move. I stepped forward and wrapped my arms around his waist, even though he smelled of sweat.
He stood stiffly for a few seconds, and then his arms slid around me. We stood there for a long moment, our hearts beating in sync.
“I fucking miss you,” Ro whispered into my hair before taking a step back and heading into the men’s.
I stayed there, my chest aching with something heavy, and I blinked back tears.
That Ro was hurting wasn’t a surprise, given everything that was happening with Mel. What was surprising was that it felt as if we were going through it separately, as if our paths had somehow diverged, no matter how much I tried to course-correct.
I always pictured Ro and me being friends until we were old and gray, watching tennis and sneaking red velvet cupcakes even when we technically shouldn’t have them. I pictured us talking through the hard stuff, leaning on each other, physically and emotionally. But for some reason, Rowan seemed to feel that he had to shoulder all his grief on his own.
Why?
What had changed between us? And why did it feel, even when our bodies were pressed together in a hug, like we were existing on separate planes?
NOW
I don’t know what to think.
