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“What?” I asked, but I knew where this was going.
My dad ran his hands over his head, big beefy hands that had no hair to smooth. It was a nervous gesture. I hated seeing him like this.
“I know we had a deal. Pass your government test, collect your diploma, and you could leave for New York with our blessing, but Trevor, the seizure changes things.”
Something ticked behind my right eye as I clenched and unclenched my hands. I hated that word almost as much as I hated those three little letters, the ones I saw when I closed my eyes: TBI. “It was one seizure,” I finally
got out.
“There could be more.”
“You think I don’t know that? It’s all I think about. The only time it goes away is when I’m with Everly.” My right eye was throbbing as much as my knee, and I dragged in a big gulp of air. “Music is my life, Dad. New York and Nathan was my plan. It still is my plan. How do you expect me to get to where I’m supposed to be if you take New York away from me?”
He took those few steps until he was inches from me, and my throat tightened when I saw his eyes. They were glassy and shiny. Geez, I wasn’t sure if I could deal with this right now. How could I keep it together when he was about to lose it?
“I’m not taking anything away from you. Trevor, I would give my right arm if it meant that you could have your dreams. Hell, I would cut both of them off if that’s what it takes to give you everything you want. Everything that you deserve. But we gotta be realistic here. It might be time…” He scrubbed at his face. “Ah, hell.”
“Time for what?” I could barely get the words out.
“It might be time for a plan B, Trevor. Time to maybe find another dream.”
I couldn’t believe he was saying this to me. I squeezed my eyes shut and struggled to keep my shit together.
“I don’t have another dream, Dad. Music, that’s it. That’s all I got.”
I felt empty saying it and kind of sick to my stomach too. Because the raw truth of it was exactly that. Music was everything to me. Always had been. What was I going to do if I couldn’t get it back? Who would I be?
Nobody.
Pain stretched across my chest, and before I could help myself, I bent over and vomited into the grass. I heaved until there was nothing left inside me, and when I finally wiped my hand across my mouth and slowly straightened, my dad was there.
His massive arms wrapped around my shoulders, bands of steel that were hard and safe. I let him hold me and felt his body shudder as he tried to keep his grief inside, but it was impossible. As much as my dad was tough on the outside, he could cry at the drop of a hat. It’s where he got his nickname, Teddy Bear. But that’s who my dad was…he was that guy. The one who cared so much, his feelings had a hard time staying inside.
I let him hold me just like he used to do when I was a kid and was hurt or upset. He probably needed it just as much as I did, because I knew that if he could, he’d chop his arm off and offer it up to whatever god he thought would make things right.
But out here under a blanket of stars that lit up a hot Louisiana night, I think we both realized that there was no easy answer. No easy way. That’s the thing about action and consequence. You have to learn to deal with it or you’ll go crazy.
My deal? I knew the odds were against me. Most people never made a complete recovery after a TBI, and now with the seizure sitting pretty on my résumé, things were worse than they were a week ago.
A year ago, I’d felt extraordinary, on the verge of something big. Nothing could touch me. Nate, Link, Brent, and I were kings.
And then we weren’t.
Now, I was less than ordinary, and for the first time since I’d come out of the coma, it hit me. Really hit me. Less than ordinary. Three words that carried some heavy weight.
They weren’t words that floated around in my head like clouds moving across a lazy summer sky. Words with no tangible meaning. They were words that hit hard. They burrowed beneath my skin and penetrated the screwed-up brain inside my head.
I might be stuck at less than ordinary for the rest of my life, and less than ordinary was now some kind of normal for me.
At seventeen. How the hell do you deal with that?
Chapter Eighteen
Everly
The crap thing about floating on a cloud is that eventually the cloud dissipates and there’s nothing left to keep you up there, suspended above a life you no longer recognize. There’s only the fall and the hope that nothing gets hurt on the way down.
I’d been falling since Wednesday night, and so far the ride down had been gentle enough, but this is my life we’re talking about, so I should have known things would get rough.
