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And the scene where the lead tries to end things is understated. Easy to miss. Especially for people who only watch comic book movies.
The person I was, before Deidre.
There's this giant line in my life.
The guy who kicked back with his friends, drinking beer, shooting the shit, ignoring the heavy stuff.
Then the guy who couldn't ignore it anymore—
Who lost his ability to ignore it.
Sort of.
I see it now, but I don't engage. I don't ask Dare if hisI'm hot and dumbroutine is masking an inability to get real. I don't congratulate Oliver on his sobriety. I don't ask Holden how hard it is doing things long distance.
Maybe it's routine. Maybe it's a lack of guts. I don't know, but I know I want more.
I want to bring Imogen to the bed, wrap my arms around her, ask why she loves the movie.
If it means anything to her. If she's had those thoughts, known anyone who did.
That isn't what she wants. I respect that. I do.
And it's not like I know how to be the person she needs, the person anyone needs.
There's a reason why Deidre didn't share this with me. And not just because I'm her kid brother.
I saw it, but I refused to see it too.
She was pulling away, avoiding family dinners, claiming other responsibilities. She said she was exhausted because she was working too hard.
It all sounded reasonable.
But it was bullshit.
In hindsight, it's obvious. At the time, I dismissed everything. I refused to look closer. I turned away from the truth.
After Deidre died, and my parents jumped into "fix it, don't talk about it mode," cleaned up her social media accounts (it was a "tragic accident" not an intentional act of self-destruction), sold her car, closed her accounts.
They didn't talk about it. They don't talk about it.
And now I barely see Molly, my oldest sister, because I can't deal with either option; her denying it or her discussing it.
There's really only one place I find intimacy—Hearts and Thorns.
That's how I found her. Deidre followed a bunch of online journals. Hers was the only one that stuck.
For a year now, I've been poring over my sister's passions. The books she dog-eared, the graphic novels she adored, the websites she followed.
Everything offers some insight.
But hers offers the most.
She isn't anything like Deidre, but she still helps me understand. And the ability to drink every drop of her words, to watch her recover, lift herself out of the darkness—
It's addicting.
She's an open book and I want to read every page.
