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“I can’t ask you for that. It’ll be like fifty thousand dollars without insurance. You’ve worked so hard for so long.”
Dylan went back to pacing from one end of the room to the other, and I racked my brain for ways to help while I watched him. His small apartment was nice but sparse. The only thing on the wall was a framed black and white photo of the siblings at Hazel’s high school graduation, huge smiles on both of their faces. Dylan had only been a kid, probably nineteen or twenty, but he was bursting with pride.
“I’m sorry,” I uttered softly. And I was. “I take it for granted, that I have good health insurance through work.”
“You have to,” Hazel said. “You have one of the most dangerous jobs in the world. You need it.”
I winced at the reminder. Over the years, I had seen so many injuries. And then there was Henri’s accident last fall. After coming up to camp because I lost my mind and couldn’t do my job, he’d hopped behind the wheel to deliver a load of lumber to the mill.
He’d lost control of the truck and had to jump out of the cab on a steep mountain road. Adele was certain his brakes had been tampered with and had the evidence to prove it, but we still had no definite answers. The incident haunted our family and our business. Because we’d lost Dad the same way two years ago. There were so many questions and no definite answers. But there was one certainty. Life was precious and often way too short.
That mentality was common in our industry. The men and women who did this work knew the risks and took them willingly. Not that I was doing anything strenuous these days. Nope, these days I was riding a desk, doing grunt work for my older brothers, and dreaming about climbing trees. No more heavy machinery for me. The only thing I was trusted with was the damn printer, and most of the time, I had to call my nephew Tucker to fix it when I inevitably jammed it up.
One more reminder of what a fuck-up I was. Screwing up left and right. No good for anyone, least of all myself.
Dylan perched on the coffee table, elbows on his knees, and dropped his head in his hands. The three of us sat in silence, the tension radiating throughout the room. “What’s the fastest way to get health coverage? Marriage, right?”
Hazel nodded. “Probably.”
Then Dylan sat up straight and let out a small chuckle. “If only you could marry Remy. He’s got the good insurance.”
Hazel burst out laughing, pushing her glasses up her nose and turning to me. “He’s officially out of his mind,” she said with a shake of her head.
I sat up straighter, trying not to feel insulted that the idea of marrying me was so preposterous to her. Maybe it was all my Crystal baggage, but it stung a bit. We’d been friends forever. We’d seen it all, and we’d built up a type of trust that could only be born out of childhood scrapes and teen shenanigans. Who elsewouldshe marry? There was nothing romantic or sexual here, just years of friendship. I would never, could never, go there. Not just out of respect for my friendship with Dylan, but out of respect for my friendship with Hazel too. But I could help. I knew it.
“I mean it,” Dylan urged. “People get married for health insurance all the time. And,” he said, nodding in my direction, “it would help with your problems too.”
Hazel contemplated me, her head tilted and her expression thoughtful. “Remy? You have problems?” she asked, as if it were absurd that anything could go wrong in my life.
I narrowed my eyes at her. “I’ve got plenty of problems.” The last thing I wanted was to dissect them with her. BecauseI need to get my head out of my ass and actually chase my dreams instead of sitting around feeling bad about myselffelt indulgent when compared to the need for life-saving surgery. But her reaction was so typical of what I had experienced my entire life. Carefree Remy, the jokester. People assumed I had no concerns, no problems. That I was immune to the force of life’s blows because of my easygoing personality.
“You need to get healthy so you can finish your dissertation. You’ve been working so hard for so long,” Dylan mused.
I zoned out while they argued, my mind spinning with this new possibility. I couldn’t marry Hazel. She wasn’t… I wasn’t… We weren’t that way. It would be wrong. Weird and very, very wrong.
But in the dark recesses of my brain, I considered it. She was sick and needed help. And the thought of protecting her, of providing for her, it flipped a switch in the caveman part of my mind.
Henri was the dependable one. Not me. I was glib, not taken seriously, always up for a good time. But maybe, for once, I could offer more than just fun. Maybe I could be the person she depended on, the person she needed.
Dad had always done what he could to lend a hand. He overextended himself constantly to help others. Since we were kids, both my parents had drilled into us a sense of responsibility for our community and neighbors.
In this moment, I couldn’t shake the thought of my dad. If he were here, he’d be rolling up his sleeves and finding a way to help Hazel, his little Pipsqueak. He always had such a soft spot for her, stepping up when she needed a father figure or a male role model. In eighth grade, she made the finals of the state science fair, and my dad took the day off work to drive her and then took her out to celebrate her second-place trophy. The thought made me smile. Dad wouldn’t let Hazel suffer because of a treatable medical condition. And neither could I.
I lifted my eyes and met hers. For a moment, we said nothing. I had spent millions of minutes with her over the past few decades, but never had I stopped to reallylookat her. I took in the contours of her face, the wide green eyes and lips that were, admittedly, more than a little kissable. “I’ll marry you, Pip,” I said softly, as if Dylan wasn’t in the room.
She threw her arms up in frustration. “You guys do not need to solve my problems for me! Why do you even need a wife?” she asked, scrunching up her forehead and pulling me out of my thought spiral.
Dylan butted in before I could respond. “Because vile Crystal screwed him up. He hasn’t been training, he hasn’t been posting on social media, and he’s not right in the head.”
“Hey!” I protested. Though he wasn’t wrong.
“You could go pro! This is your year, dude. You won state’s last year.” To Hazel, he went on. “If he places in the top five at regionals, he’ll qualify for the National Championship. And if he does that, he could land sponsorship deals.”
“It’s not that simple,” I protested, although I guessed it kind of was.
“His agent thinks he has a great chance. And he needs to get his ass back to training.”
I instantly regretted telling Dylan everything. It was just like him to apply logic and reason to my life and make me feel like a spoiled fool in the process.
