“I have my ways.”
I scowl at him. “You don’t have ways. I changed my mind. Home, James. Take me far from here.”
“No,” he says as he puts the Jeep in park. “You’re going up there, you’re knocking on the door, and you’re going to stop being a whiny little bitch. Grow a pair, Tyson.”
“You know, this tough-love thing you’ve got going on is really annoying,” I tell him as I stare up at the unassuming brick house set back from the roadway. There’s an old Ford Bronco sitting in the driveway. It fits him, somehow. This whole place does. There’s a small yard in the front, the grass green and well maintained. There’s a bird feeder hanging from the eaves of the house near the front door, catching the late afternoon sun. The garage door is open, and I can see a bike hanging from the ceiling, and I remember (whether I want to or not) a time that he told me he never really could ride a bike, that they were always too small. That he looked ridiculous trying to ride one. I spent the next four weeks scouring the Internet until I found an old used bike on eBay. I gave Bear the money I’d saved, and he bought it for me. I was only ten. Dominic was sixteen. The look on his face when I rolled it out to him knocked the breath from my chest. You would have thought it was the grandest gift to have ever been given.
We rode around that summer. Everywhere. For hours. We didn’t have a single care in the world. Sure, my mom had abandoned me. Sure, his dad had murdered his mother. Sure, we’d just lost Mrs. P. Sure, we were still recovering from loss and death and sacrifice, but those hours spent riding along the boardwalk, birds crying out overhead, the crash of the surf off somewhere to our right, those hours when it was just me and him were spent without a care. All the worries would still be there when we got back. All the hurt. All the sadness. That would all still be there.
He was my therapy then. He was the reason I understood the art of breathing.
“Ty?” I hear Corey ask.
“Yeah.” My voice is rough. I clear my throat, but I can’t take my eyes off the bike hanging in the garage. It’s not the same one (of course it’s not—that old bike had eventu
ally thrown its chain and the spokes had cracked and splintered, and years later, I don’t remember where it eventually ended up), but it doesn’t matter. There’s a smaller bike hanging next to it. It’s blue. It’s tiny. Training wheels attached to the sides. A kid’s bike. For Ben.
His son.
“Ty,” Corey says again.
“What?” I tear my eyes away and stare down the road.
“You don’t have to do this,” he tells me gently. He puts his hand on my arm and plays his fingers along the back of my hand. It’s only then that I realize both of my hands are curled into fists. “I can be pushy. But if you’re not ready for this, then we drive away now and you’ll never hear about it from me again. I only want what’s best for you, but no matter what I want, what keeps you safe is always better. This isn’t worth it if it hurts you. Nothing is.”
Somehow, I’m able to crack a smile. “That doesn’t sound like you at all,” I tell him. I turn my hand over and start tugging on his fingers. It won’t be until much later that I’ll realize I used to do the same thing to Bear when I was a kid. I don’t know when I started doing it to Corey. I know why, though. Somehow, it grounds me, keeps my mind focused. I don’t know why. I don’t know that it matters.
“I’m fickle,” he says with a small laugh.
“It’s got to happen sooner or later,” I say and look back up at the garage.
Corey says nothing. Just waits.
“I think….” I stop. Think hard. So many things are running through my head, like I’m being assaulted by memories, and he’s always there. Even when I know he wasn’t, I can still remember him. That hulking presence. That broken voice. That laugh that sounded like nothing I’d ever heard before, all rocks and rust. “Did I ever tell you how we met?”
“No.”
“I was following ants. I was fascinated by them for some reason. I don’t know. Just how my mind worked. One day I was following the ants and he was just there, watching me, on the other side of the road. I don’t know where he came from. I don’t know why. I thought he was weird at first. Maybe a little scary. But then I saw he’d drawn little stars on his shoes, and I thought that was so cool. I thought that was just so adult.”
“It is pretty cool,” Corey agrees quietly.
“It’s strange. I can’t remember a time when he wasn’t there. It’s all jumbled in my head. You know me, Corey. You probably know me better than almost anyone. But I don’t think you understand how my thoughts go. How they work. There’s a million of them. All at once. There are times I can barely focus on any one, much less all of them. It hurts sometimes. My head. Sometimes I get headaches. Sometimes there are earthquakes and I can’t breathe. It’s like my brain shuts down and my lungs collapse and my throat constricts, and even though I want to breathe, even though I want that more than anything in the world, I can’t. I can’t focus. I can’t focus on the one thing that I know will work. The one thing I know will take it all away. If I could just breathe, then all the rest would be fine.”
He tightens his hand in mine to let me know he hears me.
So touching, it mocks. So sweet and touching and blah, blah, blah. The reason you can’t breathe is because you’re broken, Kid. You’re broken and you won’t ever be fixed.
It’s probably right, that voice.
“I know he wasn’t there. All the time. Before. But I sometimes pretend he was because it makes things easier. It makes the hard things go away. Dominic was there and I knew how to breathe. I don’t know how. I don’t know why. But he kept most of the earthquakes away. He kept most of the bad thoughts away. That little voice that tells me I’m not good enough. That I’m too smart for my own good, and that I will never be healed. I will never be rid of this.”
I look down at our joined hands. “I didn’t just love him,” I say. “I think part of me needed him. For a while. And I hate that, now. I resent that now, I think. I don’t want to need anyone. I want to be able to stand on my own two feet without feeling the ground shaking underneath me, without having to worry if today is going to be the day another panic attack hits. I’m not right. Up here.” I tap the side of my head. “I don’t know if I ever will be. Not completely. I just want to be okay. I just want to one day be okay.”
“And it’ll happen,” Corey says, squeezing my hand. “And even if it doesn’t, I promise I’ll be there right by your side, and we can be fucking crazy and stupid together. If you forget how to breathe, I’ll help remind you.”
“This is getting really saccharine,” I mutter.
“Ah, there’s the Tyson I know and love,” he says with a laugh. “Opens up just a little bit and then takes a giant step back.”