Chapter Twenty-Seven Thiago
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Thiago
I didn’t recognize myself. Waking and seeing her there… It was the most wonderful thing that could ever have happened to me. But nothing works out the way you expect, and nothing is so simple, especially not when you wake up after being in a coma for two years.
Two years!
Fuck, it felt like two days for me. I was disoriented and lost at first, but then the memories came back in sharp detail, and I remembered how it all had gone down: the shooting, the fear, the desperation, the need to get Kami and her brother out of there, the risk I ran when I went back inside to save my brother.
I knew it was impossible, practically a suicide mission, but it had worked—or almost.
I had made peace with the fact that going back in there would mean my death. I knew it would be frightening, and I knew someone would end up hurt, but if I could save Taylor’s life, that would be worth it.
But I never thought I could get shot in the head and survive, let alone spend two years in a coma.
Kam was different now. The way she looked at me was different.
She was an adult now, an adult who had seen too much.
She was hiding so much pain, it was hard to be around her.
She looked the same, but she had lost the innocence and tenderness of the girl who used to look at me through her bedroom window.
I loved her. Dammit, I loved her like crazy, but when I looked at myself and the person I’d become, all I felt was contempt.
It was hard to look in the mirror and see my body so ravaged.
I was so pale and skinny, I didn’t even recognize myself in my own reflection.
But that was the least of it. The worst thing was losing control over my body, feeling clumsy, freezing up, not finding the right words to express myself.
My brain was still asleep somehow, lethargic, dazed, and I thought it would never be the same.
I started reading up and talking to the doctors to try to understand what was going on.
They told me to be hopeful, that with time and rehab, I could be the person I used to be, probably.
They never quite promised it, and if I couldn’t get back to one hundred percent, I didn’t feel capable of being with her.
I refused to burden her for the rest of her life.
I treated her badly. I can see that now. She didn’t deserve someone like me, someone so full of rage, so dark and depressed, angry and wounded—someone incapable of considering anyone but himself.
There was no space in my head for her because all I could think about was getting over what had happened to me since I’d been in the coma. But now I understand why I was like that, why I didn’t care about anything else.
It was for her. I did it for her.
I wanted to be the person I’d been before because that was the only way of getting her back, having her in my life, being able to love her the way she deserved. The way we deserved, finally having our shot, our opportunity, with nothing standing in our way.
For a year, I was a stranger to her.
She called, but I didn’t pick up, and eventually she stopped calling.
I was thankful at first. It was a relief, because rejecting her over and over was killing me inside. But after a few days, I started pining away for another of those missed calls. If she’d given up, that could only mean one thing: Kam had moved on. Without me. Just as I had told her to.
Things were different with my brother. He was with me throughout my recovery. He never left my side, through all my fits of anger, all those moments when I wanted to throw in the towel.
“You’ve got to get her back, Thiago. Otherwise, what was the point of all this?” he told me one day when I was at my lowest and I really wanted to give up.
“I don’t matter to her anymore,” I said, taking a drag on my cigarette.
I’d started smoking again. It was stupid, but it was a stupid thing that helped me relax.
“The fact that she’s living a normal life again doesn’t mean that she doesn’t love you.
I’ve never seen anyone fight for someone the way she fought for you,” Taylor said.
“You mean everything to her. And as much as it hurts me to admit it, you need to be together. I know that. You’ve got to get her back, and to do that, you’ve got to get better. ”
So I did. And my brother was my rock. He came to see me whenever he could, and we spent hours together talking. I noticed that when Kam came up, it hurt less and less, but I also got scared when he told me she was looking good, hanging out with friends, going to basketball games, even partying.
What he never mentioned was whether she was going out with anyone, and I never asked.
I couldn’t worry about that. I had to focus on my recovery above all else.
It took a whole year for my body to feel somewhat back to normal, and even then, I still hadn’t made a complete recovery.
One day, my brother, my mother, and I were sitting on our front porch, enjoying the sun. I was complaining about my cane, which I still couldn’t walk well without. Taylor said, “I don’t know, man, I think it gives you some sex appeal. Like a professor or something.”
Our mother couldn’t help but beam as she looked back and forth between us.
“Do you?” I asked, lifting it up and poking him in the stomach with it.
His abs were rock-hard. He was still in such great shape. It was no surprise they’d just signed him for the NBA G League.
Being at home with them, joking and laughing, I felt like myself again. And I knew I couldn’t keep being so negative. I mean, we were alive, weren’t we? And there were a lot of people in Carsville who couldn’t say the same.
I had never told my mother about my encounter with Lucy. Or how I felt it was my little sister who had guided me through the school. How she had protected me, how we had made up for lost time while I was in a coma.
I hadn’t been able to, because a part of me felt guilty for leaving Lucy and coming back. But now that I’d recovered, I knew my place was here and that Lucy would be OK.
I looked at my mother, and she was so happy, so calm at last, with the two of us beside her, that I knew it was time to tell her everything, strange or impossible as it might seem.
I needed to get it off my chest, and she needed to know.
It took a long time, but she listened attentively, and when I was done, I concluded, “Lucy’s all right, Mom. ”
My brother had his back turned to us. I could imagine his eyes reddening from the effort not to cry. My mother, though, she seemed finally able to put an end to that story and move on. She reached up and stroked my cheek.
“I knew she’d take care of you,” she said, “no matter what choice you made. I knew you’d be together.”
“She told me to tell you she loves you and not to worry, because time there is different from time here. She told me when she saw you again, only a few days would have passed for her.”
We didn’t talk about it again.
We didn’t have to. Telling my story, telling my mother and brother how I felt when we were together, helped us all turn the page.
It took me a while to gather the courage to go see Kami. Time stretched on until she had graduated with a degree in fine arts.
I didn’t regret keeping my distance. We both needed time—to grow, to heal, to let things settle. It felt different. It felt right. Like maybe we finally had a shot at doing this the way we were meant to.
I showed up at Harvard the day after her graduation. I had no idea what her plans were or what she’d say when she laid eyes on me. I didn’t know if she was in a relationship, whether she’d fallen in love with someone else or still thought about me.
I was scared. I can admit that.
But standing there at her door, I knew I’d done the right thing. I knew it deep in my heart. Whatever happened between us, I could at least say that I had come back from the dead for her. I’d come back thank to her. And that had to mean something, didn’t it?
When she opened the door, I didn’t recognize her at first. She had cut her hair and was wearing it in two braids. She was dressed in ripped jeans covered in paint, a black tank top with a red flannel shirt tied around her waist.
She opened the door, and everything seemed to stop.
She opened the door, and life held its breath.
Would she let me back in?
Would she let me love her the way I wanted?
Or would she close the door in my face.
I think you can guess what happened.
Can’t you?