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He gulps, his lips struggling against each other. “Maybe,” he says, shrugging before wiping a stray tear from his face. As his jaw stiffens, I can tell he’s trying to regain control over his emotions. “Anyway, fuck him. I don’t want to think about him. I just…”
He has his guard up again, but I still see the sadness in his expression, this ache in him that he can’t hide from me.
“Despite all that,” he says, “I keep coming to this fucking house and keep seeing him because she was the best person I’ve ever known, and she wouldn’t want me to walk away from him. Is that how you feel about Brandon? Like he would’ve wanted you to make shit work with Ellie, regardless of how bad it might get? I guess that’s a fucked-up thing to say. I’m sorry. It’s not like he’s dead.”
It’s hard to believe he thinks he should be sorry. For what? Actually giving a shit about the stuff I’ve been through? Most people just pretend Brandon was never in my life. “I get what you mean. It’s…complicated. I do feel like he’d want Mom and me to be okay, but there’s another side of it that makes it trickier.”
“What do you mean?” His words are so gentle, like he’s careful with me around this subject, because he must know how excruciating this can be. Thoughtful Atlas.
“A, let’s not make this about me.”
“No, believe me, I’d rather think about someone else’s problems right now.” His tone is playful, but I can tell he’s serious too.
I know what I want to tell him, but I hesitate. I’ve never shared this with anyone, but I know him, and he’s never told anyone what he’d just shared with me either. Besides, if it’ll cheer him up, isn’t that enough to risk it?
“Do you remember when I got injured junior year? And y’all went to the Caribbean for a few weeks that summer?”
He nods.
“I was out back by the pool one day, and when I went inside, I noticed the garage door ajar. I’d gotten groceries earlier and thought I might have forgotten to shut it. When I headed up to my room, I found Brandon going through my stuff. He had some of my painkillers in his hand. At the time, I was just so happy to see him that it didn’t really click. And he looked so rough—his hair was a mess, and he was so skinny. I tried to give him a hug, but he wouldn’t let me get close. He told me everything was fine, that he was getting help and just needed some money. A loan, he said, so I Venmoed him my savings that I was going to use to go to London with Colin and the guys the year after. I haven’t heard from him since.”
Atlas’s jaw tenses. I know him, and I know he’s upset on my behalf. “And you never told anyone? Not even Ellie?”
“Not even my therapist,” I say, shaking my head. “Everybody already has their opinions of him. I didn’t want anyone to know what he’d done. And I felt foolish because I really wanted to be there when he needed someone, but now I know it was just the disease, and that money probably made his life even worse. Inhindsight, I realize he must’ve seen Mom’s post with you guys on vacation and thought it’d be a good time to come by and steal from us.”
Fuck, now I’m tearing up.
Shit.
I bat the back of my hand against my face. “I don’t want anyone to know what he did. People don’t get it. They just blame him, I guess ’cause they don’t understand addiction. Like they never made mistakes. Never experimented or got too drunk. Sometimes I wish I could get people to imagine…what if the biggest mistake they ever made at the worst moment of their life, when they couldn’t see a reason to keep going, happened to have lifelong consequences? If that horrible moment of weakness altered their brain chemistry so much that they’d never be the same again? Was it so terrible for him to be vulnerable? Was it so terrible for him to need something to ease the pain? Was it his fault that when someone else had a mentor or friend who could help them, he happened to meet someone who could only make it worse?”
“I think that makes you…pretty fucking great. It’s very forgiving of you. I don’t know that I could see it that way. Or if I would have if you didn’t explain it to me, but hearing you say it…I get it,” he says, and fuck if that doesn’t release some of the tension in me, like I’m a tire with a leak. Like with all that other shit I talked to him about at the auction, there’s a relief that comes from sharing that with him. “I never asked, but when did you figure out he wasn’t coming back?”
I grapple with the memories this brings up, but I push through because it’s nice to share them. Not just with anyone, but with Atlas. “It was a slow disappearing act. He’d be gone for weeks. Then months. I thought I’d experienced the worst pain I could experience when Dad left, but when Brandon left, I knew I was wrong. It was so horrible, I thought I was going to die.”
There’s a shift in his gaze, a different sort of concern. “Like, you were going to hurt yourself?”
“No, no. Like my heart was going to explode… I didn’t know how a person could be in so much pain and keep on living. I figured a body would have to shut down before it got that bad, but it doesn’t.” I can’t disguise the despair as the memory comes flooding back, along with the haunting sensation of oppressive, suffocating grief.
When I finally force myself to look at him again, his gaze is tilted down, and I know Atlas well enough to understand he’s working through everything we said today.
“I’m sorry, A. I shouldn’t have gotten into all that. I know it’s not the same as the stuff you have with your mom.”
A subtle shift, gaze snapping to mine, eyes soft and confused. “It’s not a contest.” His expression wavers. “It’s just…it might be for different reasons, but I know the pain you’re talking about.”
“I know you do. I’ve always known.”
He pauses, hesitates, then lets the words spill out, “I’ve always known too.”
Atlas has got that beautiful pouty expression on his face, and I can’t help myself. I reach out and rest my hand against his cheek, my thumb against his bottom lip, tracing. He leans into my hold, and we gaze into each other’s eyes.
Just looking. Really seeing each other.
And letting the other see.
It was a bittersweet discussion, one we’ve had for a long time without exchanging words, so it was nice to finally speak those things that had gone unspoken.
I feel the bed jerk a little, and before I know it, I’m kissing him.
