“I never asked you to look for me,” he shot back.
I spun on my heels. I’d never wanted to hit my brother as much as I did now.
“You’re as arrogant as Dad.”
“Shit. You are mad.”
“Mad doesn’t really come close.” I slumped onto the couch. I didn’t know if I had the energy left to fight.
“I want you to be happy for me.”
“Happy about what? A new girlfriend?”
“Yes, she’s first on the list.” He grabbed a soda from the fridge. I wished I had brought coffee with me. Mom would be waking up any minute. I kept my phone close.
“Tell me.” I buried my face in my hands. “Tell me what this two-week thing was all about.”
I would give Garrett fifteen minutes before I called our parents and let them know he was alive. After that I didn’t know what would happen. He wasn’t any of the things I expected to find. There were no tears. No blood-shot eyes. No smell of alcohol. He looked rested and excited.
My backup plan had been to have him entered into treatment immediately once I found him. But sitting a few feet from him, I didn’t think that was necessary.
“When I started doing graphics for the shop I started talking to the tech company who hosted the website. We had a lot of technical issues because they couldn’t handle the art I wanted loaded on the page.”
I knew he was sparing me the specifics of the code jargon.
“Ok?”
“And the person they put me in touch with was Morgan.” His eyes had an extra spark when he said her name. “And that’s when things changed.”
“Changed in what way?”
“She made me want to be a better man, Elliot. She made me want to do things for myself that I should have been doing all along.”
I sat forward. “Like what?”
“Like stay on my med schedule. Like stop dodging my therapy.”
“What?”
He grinned. The beard was growing on me. I guessed that was Morgan’s influence too.
“I don’t know what it was about her. It was just that connection. The thing I’d always been looking for. And she didn’t see me as an illness. She saw me in spite of it.”
“I see you in spite of it. You’re my brother.”
“I know you do. But I can’t tell anyone I’m bi-polar without them looking at me as if I’m part troll.”
“That’s because people don’t understand. And it doesn’t help that you don’t stay on your medication. You don’t take care of yourself. You give people a reason to see the worst in you instead of the other way around.”
“And she just didn’t care. She fell for me anyway.”
I wasn’t going to fall for it like Garrett did. I didn’t believe that one angel had swooped in and delivered my brother to some saving grace. To a path of magical redemption. He had been with her for maybe two months. I had spent twenty years with this.
“I’m glad you have a new girlfriend. That’s great. And I’m glad she is supportive of healthy choices for your treatment. But what about the two weeks? Where have you been? You walked away from your job. You didn’t talk to your friends. This is the kind of stuff you do when you’re not ok.”
“I’ll call them and apologize.”
“That’s great, but you aren’t telling me what happened. I drove around with Dad yesterday. Dad,” I pressed the point.