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“Why didn’t you tell me this before? I’ve been asking why you were doing this and you never told me this.” Fuck. If I had justknown...
“Because I didn’t want sympathy or pity. I just wanted the headset.” He sits up so we’re face-to-face. “And now I have all those things except the headset, right?”
I reach out to grab his shoulder but let my hand fall short. “There has to be another way we can get that thing.” I crossmy legs and scoot even closer. “Or we could buy a different one.”
He wipes his nose with the back of his hand, his eyes red and watery. “I don’t have the money. I can’t touch my college funds, my parents can’t afford to buy it with the medical bills, and college, and all these kids, and—and—it’s just. I fucked up. I got confident after the second game and told him what I was doing. And then tonight, I got too nervous because it’s all too big and I’ve been spending less time with him lately for this and I have nothing to show for it. It wasn’t even worth it. He’s going to be so disappointed. I shouldn’t have gotten his hopes up.”
My fingers graze his T-shirt sleeve before I realize I’m pulling him into a hug.
I haven’t been pressed against him like this since puberty. The new addition of my chest makes it feels awkward, but my head still fits in the crook of his neck like it was made for me. I rub his back as he clings to mine with tense, desperate fingers.
“We’ll figure something out,” I mumble into his shoulder. I’ll figure something out. Some way to get everything: a perfect ending to my documentary, something for Trevor... more time with Holden. I didn’t know all the facts and it doesn’t make me a bad person for intentionally losing. Especially when I’m dedicated to fixing this.
His hands slide down my back and connect at the dip in my spine. “You don’t have to help me. I’m sorry I’m the worst documentary subject ever.”
“I’m the worst.” The truth gets caught in my throat. I choke out a laugh. “I should have, I don’t know, pried harder, to get you to tell me what was really going on. Iknewyou were hiding something.”
We fall into a silence that turns more awkward each second that passes after I realize I’m practically sitting in his lap. I don’t pull away, though, and neither does he.
“Saine?”
“Yeah?” I’m prepared to back away, to laugh off the weirdness with him, but he surprises me and makes me feel the full force of my shittiness in one blow.
“I missed you.”
I keep my breathing even. Don’t tense. “I missed you, too.”
We finally break away.
He sighs heavily, scrubbing at his eyes with the backs of his hands. “So, this is why I was being weird. I just—I didn’t want to get emotional on camera and I didn’t want to build this whole thing up in case I failed. And not many people even know about Trevor; I didn’t want to exploit him on camera like that.”
“It might be better if you talked about it. I know I feel better about—you know, I just feel better when I talk.” There’s no need to bring up my grandma. And herdeath. Not when he’s worried about if Trevor will make it. I mean,cancer. Fuck. “What can we do? For him? What does he like?”
I’m realizing for the first time that I don’t know teenage Trevor. He wasn’t even nine years old the last time I saw him. I just know the little brother who let me dress him up as a cat;the kid who stole his mother’s romance novels for me to read to him before Holden tattled on us; the boy who was always singing and dancing, even without music.
Holden laughs, a fond smile gracing his lips. “He, um, well, he loves watching bands on YouTube, like, all day. Like, live performances. He’s obsessed with Freddie Mercury and Billie Joe Armstrong, the guy from Green Day. He has this weird theory about how lead singers would make the most terrifying dictators because of their abilities to control crowds.” He laughs to himself. “My submission for the contest was the type of game I’d want to make for him. It’s the perfect blend of his two favorite things.”
I think of the live music experience Holden designed, the crowd-surfing, playing on the stage to the thousands in the crowd. Maybe we could make that happen somehow. Maybe Holden won’t ever have to know I sabotaged this. Maybe we can still be friends. I pull my camera out from the bag next to the bed. I give him a questioning look, he nods, and I press record.
He looks at the camera and then to me, relaxing. “Trevor wants to be in a band.”
I zoom into his hands. He’s wringing them in his lap. “Yeah, I could have guessed that from how he was as a kid.”
“Yeah. Wants to be in a band, but can’t sing or play an instrument, can’t leave his fucking hospital room.” His smile slides off his face, leaving blankness. “This was the one thing I could do for him and I ruined it.”
“This wasnotthe only thing you could do for him.” I makehim meet my eyes, force him to believe me just like I’m forcing myself to believe it. “I’m serious. We’ll figure something out and it’ll be way better than that overpriced hunk of prototype junk. It’ll be like—oh mygod.”
“What?” He straightens, watching me with wide eyes.
“We should make the headset.” The idea was right there all this time; why did we even waste a moment wallowing? Oh my god, this solves everything. My documentary isoverflowingwith heart now. I’m giddy at the thought of the admissions team crying by the time my documentary fades to black. I picture them wiping their eyes dry and sharing glances that say “we don’t even need to deliberate; this girl isin.”
He laughs, the tension escaping from his body. “Stop. You got me excited.”
“No, I’m serious.” I wave away his next words. “Like, obviously they’ll look terrible because we’ll just have to put together a bunch of things and, last time I checked, neither of us were rocket scientists, but, like, we could film stuff for him. First-person-perspective type stuff.”
His eyes roam over my face, his mouth slowly slowly slowly forming a disagreement. But then he says, “Okay.” He nods to himself. “Okay. We could film stuff he’s missing out on. It’s not a video game, but it’s been so long since he was allowed out to do normal kid stuff that this might be okay. It’s something.”
“I happen to know a great local band whose show we could film.”
