Page 20 of Cabin Fever

“I’m sorry. About what I said last night. Well, more how I said it.” I pause, trying to gather my thoughts, but it all just comes out in a rush. “I don’t hate you, and none of this is your fault. This isn’t who I am normally. I am fun sometimes, I think. I’m just having trouble⁠—”

I don’t notice him walking closer until his hands land on my arms, holding me together like a cold cut sandwich. “I know.”

My shoulders almost touch my earlobes as I look up. “You do?”

He nods. “Trash night.”

“What?”

“Trash night. The fall when everything happened.” His thumbs move once against my arms. “It was raining. I was taking our cans down to the street, and I heard your garage open. You were dragging both bins down the driveway at once because you wouldn't make two trips.”

“I hated making two trips.”

Finn laughs. “Yeah, I know. I offered to take one of the cans off you.”

“You did?”

He nods and purses his lips. “Yep.”

I rifle through my memories, trying to pull this one up, but can’t find it. “What did I say?” Based on his expression, I doubt it was good.

“You said something to the effect of, ‘Why? So you can tell people how much we’re struggling? Can’t even take our bins to the street?”

My eyes widen. “Seriously?” I blink. I think it's coming back. The wet cardboard smell, the can with the cracked lid, his porch light behind him.

Finn’s mouth tips up at the corner, and his hands slide lower on my arms, settling just above my elbows. “I asked⁠—”

“If I wanted you to stay out there for a while.” Because I loved sitting in the rain. I can’t remember the last time I did that.

“And you said, ‘It’s fine. You can go back to your perfect house.’”

I wince. Not only did I not remember saying that, but my recollection was Finn mocking me. Thinking it was pathetic that I was taking out the trash since my dad should’ve been there to do it.

But what if it didn’t happen that way?

A slow panic drums in my middle, rising in frequency with every heartbeat.

Finn drops his arms. “Uh . . .” He looks down, his mouth ticking. “If you want, I can⁠—”

“No, it’s okay.” I step back. “I’m just—I’m sorry that this is apparently a pattern. I’ll figure out how to stop taking my anger and emotional immaturity out on you.”

Finn was there after Dad left. He came over and asked to stay, and I told him to go back home. Had that happened more than once? Was this who I was? Someone who blamed everyone else when I couldn’t handle my crap?

Finn must see something in my expression because he smiles and steps back. “I mean, I don’t think you can do that much damage.”

“No?”

He shakes his head. “If your verbal holds are as good as your physical ones.”

Holds. It takes me a minute, and then I get it and laugh out loud. “That’s your statement? You know I beat you at Theo’s!”

That was the last summer before Dad left. Theo made a wrestling ring in his living room with his sister’s gymnastic mats and theater stanchions.

Finn raises his arms with a shrug. “I never tapped out.”

“You totally tapped out!”

Finn pulls the door open. “I don’t know, Harp. Without a rematch, the results aren’t definitive.”