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When she finally seems to realize that more isn’t coming, she says it again. “So?” She sounds almost bored.
“What do you mean, so? He’s hurt and I yelled at him!”
“And you’re brothers. Brothers fight. I’m pretty sure all siblings do sometimes. I mean, I fight with my brother and sister all the time. It’s kind of the defining characteristic of the relationship, isn’t it?”
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“Yeah, well, your sister sends you to whacked-out porn sites. I’d fight with her, too.”
Tansy laughs at that, as I intend her to. But then she cups my face in her hands, her eyes all soft and shimmery as she looks into mine. It does something to me deep inside, something I’m not quite ready to talk about but that I can’t ignore, either.
“Ash, sweetheart, you’re his brother and his friend, and while Logan is a wonderful, wonderful kid, he is still just a fourteen-year-old kid with the mouth and the attitude to go with it. I remember wanting to kill my brother when he was that age. And I’m sure he felt the same way about me. It’d be strange if you didn’t get fed up with him at times.”
“Yeah, well, your brother didn’t go through a traumatic injury that changed his whole life. I should have more patience.”
“You’ve been through a pretty traumatic experience yourself. Maybe he should have more patience with you?”
“Are you kidding me? He was trapped in that car with our dying parents for two hours while they tried to cut him out. He went into a coma on the way to the hospital, and when he finally woke up days later, his parents were dead and he was paralyzed. I don’t think what I’ve gone through is quite the same thing.”
“No, it’s not. But it’s no less terrible, is it? No less traumatic and life-altering.”
“You don’t understand.”
She laughs then, and it’s the most bitter sound I’ve ever heard her make. “Oh, I understand, Ash. Believe me, I understand.”
I want to know what she means, start to ask her about how she can possibly understand any of what I’m saying. For the first time, I realize how little I know about Tansy. About her past. About where she comes from and why she does the job she does. About all the scars she has on her body.
Something flits through my head, nebulous and unformed, but no less terrifying for all its shadow. I try to grab on to it, try to make the thought form fully, but Tansy grabs my head in her hands and says, “You can feel whatever you want, Ash. No matter how bad you think it is, no matter how awful you think it makes you. These are your emotions. No one has the right to tell you that you can’t feel them.”
“But—”
“No.” She shakes her head. “No buts. Tell me.”
I don’t want to. Fuck, I really don’t want to. I don’t want her to know what’s in my head, don’t want anyone to know how angry and fucked up and terrified I am. But she’s just standing there, watching me with those crazy, ever-changing eyes of hers, and the words just come tumbling out.
The terror that I’m fucking everything up with Logan.
The rage I have at myself, my parents, the fucking universe for doing this to him—and to me.
The fact that I feel like a selfish prick all the time because, even through everything, I miss the feel of fresh powder beneath my board like a junkie misses a fix. I’m jonesing for it, and coming on this trip, riding the half-pipe and that damn backcountry, is like opening a vein and pouring smack straight into it.
I tell Tansy what Logan said, what I said. What he accused me of, and how there’s a part of me that maybe, just maybe, thinks he might be right.
She doesn’t interrupt while I’m talking. Except to get us settled on the bed, where she curls into my lap and wraps herself around my arm, she doesn’t do anything at all. She just listens, letting me get it out.
How I’m terrified of doing something that will hurt Logan.
How I’m afraid of never living up to my parents and what he would have had with them, if they’d lived.
All the poison, all the anger, all the fear. She lets me get it all out.
When I’m done, my head is pounding and my throat is sore from all the uninterrupted talking. I don’t say anything about either, but Tansy must know because she crosses the room and pulls a Coke out of the mini-bar and a bottle of Tylenol out of her purse. She hands me the drink, then shakes two pills into her palm and gives them to me, as well.
I take them gratefully, then wait impatiently for her to settle back into my arms. I miss the feel of her, the warmth of her. She doesn’t do that, though. Instead, she finally remembers she’s naked—which sucks, if you ask me—and slips into a pair of black flannel pajamas she grabs from the suitcase on the floor.
“How you doing?” she asks, nodding to the can of soda in my hand. “You want another one? Or some water?”
“I’m good.” I hold my hand out to her and she takes it. But she doesn’t let me pull her back into my arms. Instead, she sits down on the edge of the bed and spends a few minutes clenching and unclenching her free hand in her lap. It’s how I know she’s going to tell me something she doesn’t think I’m going to like—even before she opens her mouth.
