Chapter Forty-One

brYAN

EARLIER

LAKE PLACID, NEW YORK

I can't feel anything.

There’s nothing left in my chest.

I went to sleep the night before it happened thinking her leaving was the worst thing that could happen. Even that night after Nationals five years ago couldn’t top it, because I’d just been a kid then. Nothing really bad had ever happened to me before. Now, it’s been less than a month since she got on that flight and left me stranded, I’m wearing a suit for the first time since graduation, and my father is dead.

I’ve learned all the different things people say to you when your parent dies. He was a good man. He was gone too soon. He’s looking down on you.

All of it is such bullshit, because half of these people barely even knew him. It’s all just people who worked with him virtually or knew him from all the time he spent at the hospital or people from school and his old job who hadn’t bothered to stick around after his accident. A bunch of Mom’s friends. Some guy I’d never seen before who looked at me like he’d seen a ghost, and maybe he did. Never have I ever gotten so many “you look just like him” comments than today.

The only people who really knew him all know he was an asshole. They just also know why.

Deanna and all the people from Moby’s are here, they supplied half the food for this stupid wake my mom insisted on hosting, and this whole place is flooded with people in dark clothes and fake-sad looks plastered on their faces because they don’t know what they’re doing here, either, and they don’t know how to act.

I just wish they’d all get out.

Alexandra’s downstairs with her friends, Mom was going around playing the grieving widow last time I checked, and I’ve managed to stay hidden up here in my room for the last few hours, staring at the ceiling. I’m sure everyone knows where I am, but they’ve left me alone thus far, at least. I might lose it if I have to hear one more person act like they care.

You know, you always think you have more time than you really do. My dad and I spent years in some kind of cold war with each other just because neither of us were man enough to deal with our issues straight-up. We wasted all that time, and for what? Just for me to be sitting here in my rumpled old Sunday suit in my childhood bed, sitting in my childhood room for the first time since I was sixteen and could still pretend like there wasn’t a ticking time bomb in the room down the hall where my dad was supposed to be? Just so the tidal wave I’ve been frantically paddling away from ever since I can remember can finally catch up to me and pull me under?

I’ve heard people say that, as a parent, the kid you clash with the most is the one you’re most like. And maybe in our case it was true. Me and my dad. Neither of us ever could handle it.

Jesus Christ, it’s crushing me. The grief for someone I thought at times I never even loved, someone I wished and prayed and begged to leave me alone; and I wake up in the middle of the night from that nightmare I used to have when I was little that I’d look in the mirror and see him glaring back at me. Keeping my fists curled, and my head down, and pretending nothing’s wrong. Over and over and over. Waking up and trying to sleep and going to the rink and trying not to talk because I have no idea what’ll come out of my mouth if I let it. Turning into my father one silence at a time.

I must've slipped back into sleep when I wasn’t paying attention, because by the time I roll to the side and open my eyes, wiping the drool off my cheek with my tie, there isn’t as much sun sneaking through the blinds.

I lurch to my feet, opening the door and staggering through it down the hallway. I can still hear the sounds of solemn discussion and the clinking of cutlery coming from downstairs, and I’m about to go down just to check on my sister—I really shouldn’t have disappeared like that on her, that was really shitty of me, now that I think about it—but before I can decide whether I’m actually going to find her or just stand here feeling like a bad brother, I hear the sound of something clattering to the floor from the room at the opposite end of the hallway.

I whip my head up. He’s fallen , is my first thought, before my heart stops in my chest. Because of course he hasn’t. He isn’t in there anymore.

The ache tears through my rib cage again, and I lift a hand to where it hurts, prodding and massaging it as if I can roll it out until it’s gone. Trying not to sniffle too much, not to let my face sting too tight. It has to be Mom. That’s the only thing it can be. Shit . I think I was supposed to bring up food for her.

I take a few steps, until I’m standing in front of the crack of the door, seeing a familiar figure moving around. “Hey, Mom?” I ask quietly, not making any moves to go in.

Nothing. Just more shuffling sounds. I close my eyes, take a deep breath, then push forward. “Mom, do you want—"

I trail off before I can ask about potato salad. My mother is running around her room. throwing clothes into her suitcase, opening and closing dresser drawers, pulling things out at random and tossing them onto the bed.

“Mom?” I ask, voice coming out like a little kid’s. “What are you doing?”

Nothing. “Mom.”

I go up to her and grab her by the shoulders, forcing her to look at me. “ Mom! What are you doing?”

“I have to get out of here. I can’t be here.”

And just like that, I know.

“I’m going to see your tío Alejandro and the rest of the family. They said I could stay as long as I need to. And I need to get out of here.”

“Family?” I ask, dazed. This can’t be happening. Not now. We’re in the middle of the wake. Half the town is downstairs. She’s not doing this now.

“Your uncle, remember? I’m so sorry, honey, but I can’t deal with this. I can’t be here.”

“What are you saying?” I ask slowly. “You’re just going to leave us right now?”

She sighs. “Honey, I know it doesn’t look good—“

I laugh, but I’m not smiling. “Oh, you’re damn right about that. Looks like you’re leaving your kids, your fifteen-year-old daughter, after their dad just died, to run away to Mexico.”

“It’s not like that, and you know it. I resent that you said that. I’m not going to be drinking margaritas on the beach, Bryan, I’m going to spend time with my family while I get my head on straight.”

“And what about this family?” I demand. “Huh, Mom?”

She rubs at her eyes. “You need to give me a little bit of time, okay? I really can’t be here right now—“

“You’re never here!” I burst out, and she snaps up to look at me. “Mom! You’ve never been here! All you do is leave !”

“Stop,” she spits, looking almost afraid, but there’s no way in hell I’m stopping now.

“Where were you in the hospital, huh? Any of the times? Where were you, when Dad was sitting alone in there for three days after the accident, after all the surgeries, not sure if he was ever gonna walk again, before you finally showed up? Where were you when Alexandra broke her arm in a hockey match, crying for Mommy, and I couldn’t even tell her where you were? Where were you, when I was breaking bones and tearing tendons left and right, or when I had pneumonia and Lian had to rush me to the ER because I had a 104 degree fever and had been unsupervised for two weeks? On that note, where were you when Dad kicked me out? Or every time he was sick? Where were you when he died?”

“I was paying the bills! I was keeping everything running!”

“No you weren’t. I was!” I’ve never said this. I don’t even think I ever realized it—it was like I could never be angry about it before. But now, it’s hitting me. How screwed up it all was. How screwed up it made me.

“ I had to take care of Dad whenever I was home, and try not to piss him off, not that it ever made a difference. I had to rush home after practice and school every day to make sure he and Alex were okay. I had to drop off and pick Alex up from school the second I got my permit. Not even my license, my permit . Because you said I looked old enough that the cops wouldn’t care. Well, what if they had? What would you have done?”

“Bryan—“

It’s like I’m possessed. I’m talking and I can’t stop. I’m seeing red. Something in me has finally cracked open, and there’s no stopping it now. “ I went to her hockey games, and her middle school graduation, and I cooked for all of us when there wasn’t anything left in the freezer. I had to raise my little sister and take care of my paraplegic fucking father, because you picked up every shift you could so you didn’t have to deal with us.”

Mom is trembling, shaking like a leaf. “You,” she says, quietly, her voice shaking too, “have no idea what it was like. Seeing him that way…"

Any other time I would’ve burst out laughing right then and there, but I’m so enraged I can’t even think about it. “Neither do you! You weren’t even there! You didn’t ‘see’ him that way. It was me. Me and my three-year-old sister. We had to see it. We had to live it, Mom. He was so depressed he didn’t leave the room for a year, Mom. He was depressed for the rest of his life. For months I had to listen to him crying at night when you weren’t there. I had to try and keep him from making me want to hurt myself with all the shit he said because he couldn’t handle what had happened to him. He took it all out on me.”

By now I’m shaking too, crying like I’ve never done in front of her. Now that I think about it, I don’t think I’ve ever cried in front of her. Like I thought it would make her upset. Like it would be adding more of a burden to her when she was already constantly stressed because of work, because of Dad, because of Alex, because of me.

“I was a kid , Mom. I thought it was my fault. No one ever told me it wasn’t.” Tears are freely running down my face now, my whole face hot and sticky, but I don’t care. I take a shaky breath, before I finally say it. “ You never told me it wasn’t.”

She’s crying. “Bryan,” she says, but she doesn’t finish the sentence.

And for once. I’m the one who leaves.

I drive around for what feels like hours. I floor the pedal, I crawl along the street, I drive around my old neighborhood and the streets I grew up on, armed with a license this time around, armed with my same self but a slightly bigger body, still that boy who never knew what to do with himself and grinned bigger and bigger to hide it all.

I think when I moved in with Lian it still hadn’t hit me the magnitude of what had happened. That I was officially—well, not officially, because Lee and Deanna were somehow able to ward off Child Services so I didn't up in foster care—homeless, parentless. Not sisterless, at least. I think that’s what kept me sane. That, and skating. I still had that. And I still had Ollie and Nina and Juliet and Lian. It was enough to act like things were still normal.

Besides, it was never, never step foot in this house again . I almost wish it were. Maybe that way it would’ve been easier. But Mom just stood there. Pretending nothing was happening. Letting it all happen.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ll blame my dad forever, too, but he, at the very least, had an explanation. Not an excuse, but an explanation. She didn’t. She wasn’t the one who had her legs taken out from under her, literally and figuratively. She could’ve stepped up. She could’ve been a parent, and she didn’t do it. She could’ve been there, for Dad, for me, for Alex.

And, hell, if she couldn’t handle it, she could’ve divorced him. Made it official. Maybe that would’ve been the wake-up call Dad needed.

What does it matter, anyway? I don’t need to sit here, in the driver’s seat of my own car, making up excuses and talking about hypotheticals, wondering what could’ve been different for my parents to be parents, instead of me parenting them and my sister. For my sister not to have seen all of that happen, see her big brother so damn helpless.

We were kids. We were kids .

“Fuck you,” I say aloud, the one thing I didn’t say. “Fuck you, Mom.”

He’s dead. She left.

The writing’s on the wall.

I end up, unsurprisingly, at Lian’s front door.

I think on some level I was trying to avoid Ollie and Nina, just because I can’t stand how sorry they are for me even if their intentions are nothing but good. The both of them have the worst poker faces in the world. Every time I look at them, I see, poor Bryan, with his broken heart and his dead dad.

Lee knows me well enough to know when to leave me alone, and she lets me slip inside and upstairs before they can see me. They’re in the living room, packed on the couch, watching some competition on the TV and probably eating from Lian’s stock of ice cream.

I duck into my old room, shucking my suit off and carefully closing the door until I hear the tiny click and the sounds of laughter and clinking bowls muffle. Then I crawl into bed, pulling the covers over my head and falling asleep before I can let myself think about the last person who stayed here.

I dream of falls. Of screaming. And then I open my eyes, and that’s when I realize the screaming is coming from downstairs.

I rush down, nearly toppling down the last few steps because I’m still half-asleep, and I barge into the living room. I know it’s bad, because no one is surprised to see me.

“Is everything okay?”

Nina’s eyes are glued to the screen, hand over her mouth in horror. Ollie looks like he’s going to be sick. Lian takes a step closer, face ashen.

“Bry, honey. It’s Katya.”

I really try to pretend like hearing her name isn’t like getting a punch to the stomach. “What about her?”

And that’s when I look past my coach to see what’s on the screen. A skater splayed out on the ice, completely motionless, a team of medics crowded around her. For a second I think she’s dyed her hair again. On second glance, I see that it’s really just blood.

Lian looks like she’s seen a ghost. She’s never scared. She doesn’t get scared when we fall. “I’m calling Mikhail.” Oh my God.

I’m going to puke. I’m going to throw up. I don’t even realize that I sit down, but I do, my legs suddenly giving way. “How long has she been down? What are they—“ I can’t even get the words out. “Why isn’t she moving?” I turn to the others, and they just stare back at me, mouths half-open. “Why isn’t she getting up?”

I can hear the panic in my own voice. “Why aren’t they getting her off? Why are they just standing there?” My chest is getting tighter and tighter, and I grab a hand to my throat, as if that’ll help me get air in. “She’s not—oh, God,” I gasp, making a horrible gagging noise, but I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe —

“Bryan! Relax, you’re going to give yourself a heart attack!” Ollie’s grabbing me by the shoulders, trying to get me to inhale, and I can feel myself turning blue, my mouth is hanging open but my lungs have completely forgotten how to function. I’m choking.

“Lee, help him,” Nina cries, and Lian just kneels in front of me, dropping the phone to the floor with a clatter.

“Bryan, look at me right now.” Her voice is even, and I hold onto it like a lifeline. “You know the drill. We’re going to count to ten, alright, and then you’re going to raise your arms up.”

“What the hell is wrong with him?” Ollie says, clearly freaking out, and I squeeze my eyes shut as tight as I can. They can’t see me like this. I don’t want anyone to see me like this. I’ve been hiding this for so long; they can’t know. It’s bad enough Lee knows, but everyone else is just going to think I’m even more pathetic. I can’t do this. I can’t do this. Why isn’t she getting up —

“I need the two of you to calm down or get out of here,” Lian says curtly. “You aren’t helping him right now.”

“Come on,” I hear Nina’s voice say, and both of them fade into another room until Lian’s sternly calm presence is the only one here.

“Ten,” Lian says, and even though it feels like my chest is cracking in two, I force myself to lift my arms. They feel made of cement. I can’t remember why we do this, something about distraction, but all I know is that it’s worked before. Lee continues the count, and I follow the pattern, raising and lowering my arms, moving ridiculously slowly.

Once it’s over, and the weight on my chest isn’t as crushing, I let her turn off the TV. I let her put her hand on my back and shepherd me back upstairs.

I’m getting back into bed, turned away from her, when I finally ask her. “Can you call him?” My voice is cracked, thin.

“Sleep, honey,” I hear Lian’s voice say gently, floating further and further away. “Everything’s going to be okay.”

I always used to believe her when she said that.

It’s not rational at all, but it feels like it’s my fault. Like I shouldn’t have let her go. The part of me that was her partner can’t help but beat myself up for not being right there beside her to break her fall.

And then I get pissed off at myself all over again. Because it’s so stupid. Because she made the decision to leave, and it’s not my fault she fell, and damn her for being so stubborn, and careless, and hyper-independent, and her insistent refusal to listen to common sense—is she crazy? Two quads followed by a triple? And at the end of the program? It’s like she wanted to fall. It was probably all her idea. I bet her coaches told her over and over again not to do it, and she still did it anyway.

I should’ve been there to catch her .

The ache in my chest doesn’t go away.