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Viggo stares at me with those intense, pale Bergman eyes. “Then you get why I’m protective of her. Why I worry about her. Why I try to protect her from everything I possibly can so it can never hurt her like it hurt her then.” He exhales heavily. “I was right fucking there in school with her, and I didn’t see it. I didn’t see how they bullied her. They did it so damn quietly, so stealthily, or I swear to God, I would have done unspeakable things.”
“You feel guilty.”
“Really fucking guilty!” he yells. “And she knows that. I’ve apologized for failing her. I’ve told her how sorry I am that she was right under my nose, hurting so badly, and I missed it—” His voice breaks. He buries his face in his hands. “I missed it.”
I stand, a lump in my throat, and plop down beside him. I set a hand hard on his shoulder. “She forgave you.”
He nods.
“And told you there was nothing to forgive,” I add.
“Which is bullshit,” he mutters.
“Sure feels like it. It’s hard to be given grace when you don’t think you deserve it.”
Viggo drops his hands, then peers over at me, eyes wet. He’s quiet, his gaze searching mine. So I take this rare instance of him actually shutting his yap, and tell him, “You and I are pretty much opposites.”
He laughs emptily, glancing away. “How so.”
“For the longest time, I refused to carry anyone with me—on my shoulders, in my thoughts, in my heart.” I shrug. “It made me feel in control. Safe. Which…I was neither of those things, of course. But I was coping as best I could.”
I squeeze his shoulder. “Whereas you, Viggo…I’m pretty sure you carry everyone on your shoulders, in your thoughts, in your heart.”
Viggo ducks his head and exhales heavily, tugging off his ball cap and chucking it to the shed floor with a thwack. “Goddammit.”
“Because it makes your chaotic life feel a little more in control, and—here is where you are an infinitely better human than me—it allows you to feel like you’re keeping the people you love safe. Because you have a devastatingly big heart, and I imagine it’s pretty damn scary to possess that much emotional real estate.”
His shoulders shake. “What the hell is happening?”
“I think maybe you’re getting a taste of your own medicine?” I let go of his shoulder, then set my elbows on my knees, leaning close to him. “Ziggy talks a lot about you. Often, she’s exasperated, but there’s a throughline in what she says, something I’ve picked up on.”
“And that would be?” He rakes his hands through his hair and tugs.
“That you love your family and your friends and your books and everything you put your heart into so fucking much. Which I can only imagine is really beautiful sometimes, and really brutal others.”
Slowly he glances my way and sighs heavily. “Yeah.”
I stare at him. “Maybe it’s just time to…find different ways to take care of that big heart, to protect it. Ways that don’t exhaust you and twist you up so badly you don’t even recognize yourself. Ways that allow you to live your life, not worry about everyone else’s.”
“Ah,” Viggo says, “but then I’d actually have to figure out my own life.”
I nod. “Fair. It’s daunting to do that.”
“Indeed.”
“But…” I stand, shoving my hands in my pockets as I turn and face him. “As someone who’s spent the past six months trying to do just that, I can say that it gets a little easier. And it’s definitely worth it.”
Viggo peers up at me, eyes searching mine. Then he stands and scoops up his ball cap, dusting it off before he slaps it onto his head again. “Well.” He rolls his shoulders back, mirroring me as he slides his hands into his pockets. “I guess all I have to say is…thank you.”
I frown at him. “Thank you?”
He nods. “For turning the tables on me. For doing a shit ton of work to be a person worthy of my sister, though let’s be honest, no one’s worthy of her.”
“Fact.”
He grins, wiping his nose, peering off. “Take good care of her, okay? Just be good to her.”
I smile. “I will, if she lets me. And if I fuck up, you can beat my ass.”
