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“Exactly,” he says. “And you almost fucking died that trip. Mom has enough to deal with right now without worrying that you’ll try to kill yourself.”
“I’m not trying to kill myself,” I say.
“Could have fooled the rest of us.”
I get a grip on my anger with a deep breath. “How is she? What’s the prognosis?”
“She’s fine,” he says. “They caught it very early, and it’s not aggressive. She had a lumpectomy two weeks ago, and the surgeon was really happy. She starts radiation in a few weeks, but really, that’s more of a precaution than anything. She’s going to recover.”
“I can’t believe they didn’t tell me.”
“Well, I’m telling you now,” he says. “Call her. Talk to her. She misses you.”
I’m overdue for a visit to my folks. “I’ll go. I don’t know when I can get away, but I’ll get down there as soon as I can.”
“Good,” Damon says. “Honestly, you don’t need to worry about her. She feels great, and there’s every indication she’ll make a complete recovery.”
I nod. “Good.”
“So what’s the plan for tonight? Do I get to meet this mysterious girlfriend of yours?”
That word is a stab to my gut, and my voice goes icy cold. “She’s not my girlfriend.”
“Sorry, last time we talked, you said—”
“She’s not.”
Damon takes a deep breath. “I know it’s usually a bad idea to poke a wounded animal, but what happened?”
There was a time when I might have talked to Damon about this. He knew all about Chelsea. I even talked to him about how I felt afterward. He helped get me through one of the worst experiences of my life. “Things just got really intense.”
“How so?”
“You know what? It’s nothing. I made a mistake with her. And I’ve been so fucking buried with this meeting we have coming up. When it’s over, I need to get out of town for a while. Blow off some steam.”
“Right, blow off steam.”
“Do you actually wonder why I don’t come around?” I ask, unable to mask the irritation in my voice. “I get the same thing from you every time. From Mom and Dad, too. Stop with the passive-aggressive bullshit. I know none of you approve of me—but none of you understand me, either.”
“I understand you a lot better than you realize,” Damon says.
I shake my head. “I don’t need you to come here and psychoanalyze me.”
“Actually, I think you do,” he says. “I didn’t come up here intending to bust your balls, but I think I’m overdue. I haven’t been much of a brother to you all these years, and I’m sorry for that. But every time life gets hard, you can’t go dive out of a goddamn airplane or whatever it is you do.”
“It’s not about life getting hard,” I say.
“Then what is it about?” he asks. “What is it that makes you do all that stupid shit? Mom thinks you have a death wish. She’s convinced it’s survivor’s guilt and you’re trying to tempt fate or something.”
“I’m not trying to die,” I say. “This is what I mean. You look at me and you think you understand what I went through, or what it did to me. No one does.”
“Then enlighten me,” he says. “What’s it like to be you? Why do you take such stupid fucking risks with your life?”
“Because that’s the only time I feel alive,” I say. “Right now, sitting here? I’m half dead. I don’t feel much of anything. I don’t jump off cliffs or out of airplanes, or climb rock faces, because I want to kill myself. I do it so I can stay alive.”
Damon gapes at me for a long moment. “You’re a fucking mess. You know that, right? The only way you’re ever going to get better is if you find something to make you feel alive that isn’t going to kill you.”
“What did you say?” I ask.
