Chapter 24 Sab
Sab
It’s the longest day and night of my life. The only thing I have to compare it to is the week and a half Tam spent in ICU all those years ago, and it eats me alive that this feels the fucking same.
Actually, it feels worse.
At least with Tam, I was there. Holding his hand. Counting his fucking heartbeats. Drowning in the harsh reality that he was so close to death.
Galen, though.
How will I even know unless they splash his face all over the news? And that’s banking on Tam letting me have the TV remote back, which isn’t happening any time soon.
It leaves me with my phone. But Tam deleted all the news apps before he let me near it and now he’s watching me, on alert for guerrilla googling, and for his sanity and mine, I let it be.
Play chicken with the thing on the arm of the couch, all the while Tam’s phone buzzes and flashes as if it’s hot-wired to the mains.
“Is that Bhodi?”
Tam slides me a shifty gaze.
At least, it seems shifty to me. “Non. Il bosse. Tu sais bien.”
“I know he’s working, but it’s been a fucking lifetime.”
Right?
Truth be told, I can’t think straight enough to figure it out. And I don’t need to. Tam’s aware enough of how long Bhodi’s been gone. That it’s the early hours of Christmas morning and his husband isn’t home. That he’s fighting to keep his eyes open, but he’s staying awake for me.
I go back to spinning thoughts. Aborted ruminations that have me tapping restless fingers on my knees, legs so jittery it’s a battle to keep them still.
God, I hate not knowing he’s okay.
That he isn’t fucking okay.
Rescue workers missing.
Fuck, it’s been hours since Tam turned the TV off, but I keep hearing that headline in Galen’s voice. Picturing him in that black water, fighting the current, fighting himself, giving everything he has, because I know he’d never stop until he had nothing left.
You don’t even know he was there. Or that Galen’s crew even attended the crash at Whitefen Bridge.
Tam’s told me that.
More than once.
But deep inside, where my soul knows things my brain hasn’t figured out yet, I feel it. I know it.
He was there.
And he might not come back.
I wrench myself from the couch and pace to the window. It’s still so dark outside, but it’s snowing again, hard and fast, the kind of snow that stops the trains and turns the roads into ski runs come the morning.
Unless it’s Christmas morning and everyone stays home. But what is home without the people you love? And when did Galen become as dear to me as Tam? As Bhodi, who’s not here either?
I can’t put my finger on it. But I know it was somewhere around the time Esme started singing his name every time she saw him. When he showed me just how much he could love her if either one of us could ever get our heads around this thing between us.
Didn’t see it then.
I see it now, and the fear I’m way too late is tough to bear. What the hell am I going to do if I never see him again?
My vision blurs as lights flare outside, full-beams sweeping as a car crunches to a stop, tyres sliding a touch on the fresh snow.
Bhodi.
I recognise the shape of his old Golf, and though some tiny part of me eases knowing he’s here, I have zero intention of going outside.
But then I turn my back on the window and watch my brother stagger from the armchair and I know I can’t let him go out there alone, even if seeing him with Bhodi hurts as much as it heals.
We’re a family.
This is what we do.
I help Tam up and force him into his boots before he dashes outside in his socks, the fucking lunatic. I stamp into my own shoes and follow him into the snow. Into the gloom as Bhodi shuts off the car, swamping us in eerie quiet again.
The cold air stings. My breath fogs, wind biting my skin.
I try not to think about how cold the river is.
How cold it must’ve been for Galen. I try not to think of anything but my brother’s relief as Bhodi climbs out of the driver’s side, blond hair catching the glow of the streetlights, his lovely face drawn and pale, sunny smile faint and tired.
He nods to me as Tam reaches him. Then he’s gone, lost to a tornado of growly Dubois affection, and I feel the slump in my shoulders before it happens, fear, dejection, and sadness a wicked mix of emotions that has me wanting to shut all the way down. To be alone with this soul-deep ache.
Go back inside.
I start to turn away. Change my mind and go back for Bhodi’s bag.
It’s usually on the passenger seat, discarded and open, belongings spilling out.
I reach for the handle, but the door opens before I make contact and a tall figure unfolds from the seat, moving slowly—stiffly, auburn hair wild even before the wind finds it, tired green eyes locking on mine as snow falls between us.
Merde.
I have to be seeing things. But my heart gets a memo logical thought isn’t privy to, and sets off at a gallop as my world narrows to the battered and bruised man standing before me, snowflakes melting on his cheeks.
Galen.
Fuck.
He’s here—he’s alive. And in the frozen stillness of Cosmic Avenue, I’ve never seen anything more beautiful.
Alive he might be, but Galen’s also a wreck. In the snow, I hold him close and he sags against me, burying his face in my neck. But it’s not long before Bhodi appears at my shoulder.
“
he needs to rest, Sab. Inside, where it’s warm.”
Nurse Bhodi’s not playing around. Neither’s my brother who shoots me a look that lets me know Bhodi needs to be inside too.
I nod, sliding my hands to Galen’s jaw as they troop inside, and coax him to look at me.
He gives me a hazy stare.
I stare right back. “Hey there. Are you okay? I missed you.”
Galen shivers. “I’m so fecking sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it. I’m shit at everything too. You want to come inside? Or I can drive you home, if you want.”
“Drive me?” A ghost of a smile lights Galen’s drawn face, a bruise blooming on his cheek. “Greenpeace’ll be after you, boy.”
“I’d fight them for you. But the truth is, I want you to stay here, with us—with me, so I can take care of you.”
Galen doesn’t answer. Just lets me take his hand and lead him inside, where Tam and Bhodi have already disappeared upstairs to the spare room. I hear them moving around. The shower turn on. My brother checking on Esme.
Je t’aime, grand frère.
I help Galen out of his shoes and coat, and put him on the couch. Sit next to him. He doesn’t say much for the longest time. Eventually he falls asleep with his head in my lap, gripping my hand, and that’s where he stays until morning.
It’s kind of awful.
Kind of perfect.
It’s early when Tam pads downstairs with Esme in his arms. She spots Galen still sleeping and her big eyes light up, but I can tell Tam’s already warned her to be quiet, and my heart melts as she taps a tiny finger to her lips and whispers in Tam’s ear.
Tam smiles and takes her to the fireplace where her stocking hangs. He’s the best uncle in the world. Esme’s second dad. He’s got this if I need him to.
But I’m Esme’s father before I’m anything to anyone else, even Galen, and I ease out from beneath him, swapping my lap for a cushion.
I sit with Esme on the carpet and open her little stocking with her. She’s not that quiet as she gets into it, but Galen doesn’t stir. Neither does Bhodi upstairs, Tam checks.
“Dead to the world,” he says. Then winces. “That hits different this morning, eh?”
I hum my agreement, letting Esme pour magic sand through my fingers. “Plein de choses sont différentes aujourd’hui.”
Lots of things feel different today.
“Even you?”
“Especially me.”
Tam opens his mouth. Shuts it again, subtly inclining his head to the couch.
To where Galen is no longer asleep.
In fact, he’s sitting up, rumpled and confused, as Tam levers himself from the floor and disappears into the kitchen, cursing the giant capon before he’s even shut the door.
Esme’s on my knee.
I hold out my hand to Galen. He takes it and slides from the couch to where we sit on the rug.
He winds a lock of Esme’s hair around a shaky finger. “You’d never leave her, would you?”
The whispered question feels out of context. And it shouldn’t. But we have time to fix that. Maybe not today, but soon. So I give him the truth. “Not for anyone or anything. How are you feeling?”
“I’m all right.”
It’s not really what I’m asking, but Esme notices Galen’s awake and her excitement shifts the mood. She bounces from me to him before I can catch her, flinging herself into Galen’s arms.
“Esme! Pas de saut, mon petit c?ur. Il a des bleus.”
Bruises, I can see them under his clothes. And Esme, she wants to look. She rolls his sleeves up and peeks past his collar.
“Poor Galen,” she says so seriously I nearly break. “Faut du gateau de Noel pour toi.”
Galen looks to me for translation.
“She thinks you need cake,” I supply. “When did you last eat?”
“I don’t know.”
I start to rise from the floor, but Tam pops up like a menacing matron, brandishing tea and a pile of Mr Kipling boxes that were definitely not in my house before he got there.
Then he disappears upstairs, taking Rudy with him, and he doesn’t come back for a while.
“I should go,” Galen says, his gaze drifting to the stairs. “Let you lot enjoy your Christmas.”
If Bhodi’s awake, I’m pretty sure my brother is enjoying his Christmas just fine, but I keep that to myself and ask the real question. “Do you want to go home?”
Galen’s staring into his empty tea mug. He seems to realise and sets it down.
“No, but I don’t want to suck any more joy out of your life than I already have.
Sab, I’m really sorry if I hurt you. I don’t know what’s happened to me since I met you.
” He wraps his bruised knuckles to his temple.
“It’s like I strangled myself with my own feelings. ”
By chance, I’m on my knees at his feet, sweeping up magic sand while Esme plays with her precious fire truck, but I don’t feel submissive as I tilt my head to meet his gaze.
“You didn’t do anything wrong. I should’ve told you I didn’t want to hook up with other people instead of going along with it. ”
“That’s not just on you. I didn’t say anything either, about any of it. And then it got so messy in my head, I didn’t know how to fix it, and I should’ve done. It wasn’t fecking complicated.”
“It wasn’t?”
“Not for anyone with half a brain. I just…I don’t know. Did I ever tell you my dad left on Christmas Eve and I never saw him again?”
I blink. “No. When did that happen?”
“When I was eight. He was supposed to pick up the bacon from the butcher for my ma, and he got on a train to see his fancy woman instead. Last I heard, he’s still there.”
“He’s the someone who made you hate Christmas songs?”
“I don’t hate them.” Galen glances at Esme. “More it doesn’t take much for me to think I do. Even though my ma remarried and she’s happy as Larry with a fella we all call Da these days, you know?”
Based on what he’s told me about flashovers, extended hospital stays, and deadbeat dads, I’m beginning to. “I spent Christmas on a park bench once. Even though I knew my brother was running all over the city looking for me. That he’d have taken me home whatever state he found me in.”
“What state were you in?”
I don’t have the words for that. Not sure I ever will, but for Galen, I try. “The kind of state where I thought nothing could ever change. That it was pointless trying. Du désespoir…au-delà de tout.”
Despair, beyond everything.
Galen doesn’t need a translation. He nods, understanding, a sombre thoughtfulness cloaking his features.
But it doesn’t last. Esme remembers he’s here and dances into his arms, and I take a moment to check on whatever Tam’s started in the kitchen.
Slice the potatoes for the gratin and shell some walnuts, all the while ruminating how natural it feels to have him here, even if I fucking hate he’s had to survive something so awful to know for sure that he wants to be.
Even though I know that’s what our existence is all about: a series of catastrophes that bring us the best days of our lives.
Even at Christmas.
Especially at Christmas.
By the time I go back to the living room, Galen is up and about, embracing Esme’s tour of her stocking presents with the seriousness it deserves.
He has magic sand in his hair and more light in his eyes than I’ve seen from him in a while.
Light that gives me the nerve to ask him something else. “The message you sent me before you went to the crash scene. I think it got cut off before you finished it, but I have to know…did you mean it?”
Galen turns his head. By now, Esme has switched on every festive light in the house and the garden, and of course, the gold and pink flares catch the copper tones in Galen’s hair, the bright green of his eyes.
He’s still tired, I can tell, but has he ever looked hotter?
In the loaded second it takes him to answer, every encounter we’ve ever shared flashes through my head.
A reel of heat and angst. Of red hot connection, warm, unfurling friendship, and terrible, man-flavoured communication.
Was it love at first sight?
At the second?
Is it love now?
For me…I’ve been certain for longer than I likely know, and waiting for Galen’s answer is a beautiful and terrible thing until he smiles and reaches for me with his bruised hand.
“Boy, I meant every fecking word.”