67. Chapter Sixty-Seven
The three of us ride in Cole’s truck to the house the following day. Chris was cleared to be discharged, and though he hardly remembers being in the hospital, he can’t stop talking about how excited he is to be home.
He’s like an entirely different person. Like the Chris I remember, not the one I came home to last year. It’s relieving. Yet there is a heavy weight in my chest that won’t leave me the hell alone. I can’t figure out which is worse: keeping all of this from him, or him knowing what I did.
“Oh, shit. Is that your rental, Bry?” Chris eyes my car in the driveway. The one that I was giving back to Cole because I can’t do anything with it. Not unless I want to take a road trip back to Boston, which I absolutely do not. I’m afraid of flying, but I don’t think anything could make me take that long of a road trip in a car. Maybe if I had an RV and a month to do it.
“Uh, yeah,” I say quickly. “Figured I’d go all out, ya know?”
Cole eyes me in the rear-view mirror, but I ignore him. He better not be judging me for lying to Chris. I hope he understands that we’re going to be doing a lot of lying to Chris.
“Hell yeah.” Chris looks behind his seat at me. “You going to take me for a ride or what?”
“Whenever you want,” I say, forcing a smile.
The doctor said it will be normal for Chris to be tired a lot, and grumpy. Mood swings are common after a brain injury. His body went through a lot of trauma, so there will be a lot of changes with Chris. Cole and I’s job is to keep track and help him stay calm, remind him that it’s okay and he needs time to heal. Things won’t go back to normal right away. Taking care of someone with a TBI isn’t easy.
So far, Chris’s mood has been great. Maybe it’ll stay like this.
It’s not that I don’t want the memories to come back to him, it’s just that I know my world is going to blow up, for the second time, when they do.
He’s going to be pissed at me all over again. Say horrible things to me all over again. How will I deal with that twice? How will I handle seeing the hatred and devastation on his face, aimed at me, another time?
I’ve been wondering if we should just tell him. I want to bring it up to Cole, but he already said we were told to avoid that sort of thing, so it’s likely he’ll disagree. And though I know it’s wrong to tell him, I can’t help but assume him randomly remembering it all won’t be just as traumatic. Though, from what we’re told, this is about healing and not trauma.
But is he going to be in the middle of dinner with Cole and me when he remembers walking in on us? How the hell is that going to go over? Will he pick up a knife and stab us? He could be in the middle of a shower, freak out and slip. I mean, the possibilities are endless. I’m terrified. And not only for me, but for Cole, and especially Chris. He’s supposed to be taking it easy. Who is going to take care of him when these memories come back to him?
I feel like I’m hanging out with a ticking time bomb, with not the faintest clue of when it’s going to go off.
“Maybe we can go by Mila’s later?” Chris suggests.
“Dr. Connor said you need to take it easy for the next couple of days, Christopher.”
Chris groans. “Whatever. Party pooper,” he mutters under his breath.
Cole grits his teeth as he shuts off the car. Chris opens the door and carefully gets out. I get out next.
“You good?” I ask him, placing my hand on his shoulder.
“Totally. Legs are a little sore.”
“Just go slow.”
Cole goes to the front door to let us in. I help Chris up the steps. Just by the way he’s moving, I can see he’s stiff. We have a list of exercises and stretches for him to do to help regain his strength.
“Aw fuck, I forgot about all those stairs,” Chris groans when we step into the hallway, and he eyes the stairs that lead to his bedroom.
“I can make up the pull-out, if you’d rather stay down here,” Cole says, gesturing toward the couch.
Chris looks from the hallway to the couch. “Maybe the stairs won’t be so terrible later. Oh! You know what I wanna do, Bry?”
“What’s that?” I ask.
“Hot tub!”
I huff out a laugh. “That does sound good.”
“And food,” he says. “Greasy ass food. Hospital food is shit. I want a juicy cheeseburger, or pizza with extra meat and extra grease.”
I bark out a laugh. “Whatever you want, Chris.”
“I’ll order food. You go grab our swimsuits?” Chris says, carefully easing himself down into the armchair.
I nod and head upstairs to his room. I pull open the drawers, but they’re all empty. He hadn’t been staying here when he got into the accident, and it seems he took everything. Chris has no idea he moved in with Tabitha and that none of his clothes are here.
“Fuck,” I mutter, closing the drawer a little too hard. I run a hand through my hair and turn on my heel to find Cole in the doorway.
“Just use mine,” he says. “He won’t know the difference.” He heads into his bedroom, and I follow after him, but don’t go inside. I can’t handle being in there with him. At least it smells better.
A moment later, he’s handing me two swimsuits.
“Two, huh?” I ask with a raised brow. He smirks.
He’s had suits this whole time, but obviously just wanted to see me in my underwear. Fucking Cole.
“Just tell him he got them last year or something,” he suggests.
“What are you going to do about the rest of his stuff?”
“Tabitha is bringing his stuff by today. She’ll be here soon. I’ll put it all in his room without him realizing.”
I nod, but don’t move.
“Thank you,” I say. Though I’m not really sure why.
“For what?” he asks.
“I don’t even know. Just felt like it needed to be said.”
He nods carefully, then says, “I should be thanking you. I know being here isn’t easy, but you’re doing it for Chris, and that means more to me than you could ever understand.”
I force a smile. His eyes bore into mine, but he doesn’t smile back.
Fuck, I miss him so much.
“Food will be here in about an hour. Yo, dad!” he calls.
“What’s up?” Cole says, still holding my gaze.
I want to reach out and touch him. Hug him. Kiss him. Beg him to hold me and make everything okay.
“Can you bring us the food when it gets here?”
Cole blinks and looks toward the stairs, scratching the back of his neck.
“Yeah, sure,” he says.
Giving me one last look, he moves out of his room and goes downstairs. I head down too and gesture to the bathroom when I reach Chris. He gets up with a groan like he’s eighty years old. I follow him into the bathroom to make sure he’s okay.
“You need help?” I hand him one of the suits. He looks at it strangely for a moment. “These were the only two I could find,” I add.
He puts it on the counter and hooks his fingers into the waistband of his sweatpants.
“I should be good. Just don’t look at my ass.” He smirks, and I can’t help but laugh.
“When have I ever been interested in your ass?”
He shakes his head, and we both change.
Cole is sitting in the armchair now, looking a little pissed, though I can’t imagine what he’d be mad about now. Maybe it isn’t anger but worry. I avoid his gaze when I walk by. I can imagine him not being happy about Chris and I being naked in front of one another, but why in the world would he care? It’s something Chris and I have always done, and it’s never been an issue before. He knows his son has no interest in me, and vice versa. Cole has made it clear he still has feelings for me, and I hope I’ve made it clear that even though I do too, this absolutely will not happen with us.
He’s respecting my boundaries, so I’m assuming I’m doing a good job of putting my foot down. And for that, I’m proud. But I’ll be even more proud if I make it through the entire week without letting my walls crack or crumble.
I help Chris into the hot tub when we reach it. Climbing in isn’t easy for him, so I stay by his side and help with the weight and so he doesn’t slip. It’s going to take him a while to get back to normal physically.
Honestly, it’s a miracle he didn’t break any bones. The doctors were surprised. But he hit his head pretty hard, and a brain injury is more dangerous than a broken arm. So I guess what he got is much worse.
Chris sighs when he sits down, closing his eyes and resting his head back. As we sit in the hot water, neither of us saying a word, I realize how anxious I am. Any minute, his memories could come flooding back and he’s going to hate me again.
“How long are you staying for?” he finally asks.
“I have to go back to Boston on Monday.”
He responds, but keeps his eyes closed. “That blows, man. Why the hell did you take a job all the way over there? I thought you wanted to come back here after graduation.”
I did come back. And I fell in love with your dad. Then my world exploded.
“Changed my mind.”
He peaks an eye open at me.
“What aren’t you telling me?”
“What?” I blurt out. “N-nothing.”
He shakes his head, settling deeper into the water. Still, he doesn’t open his eyes, which I’m grateful for. If he looked at me, he’d know I was lying. Hell, he probably already does.
“I may have a brain injury and temporary amnesia, but I’m not stupid, Bryson. I know something is going on. What is it?”
I had a feeling Chris would know something is going on, but I wasn’t expecting him to call me out on it so soon. We’ve barely been here a half hour.
“We were told not to te—”
“Not to tell me shit I don’t remember. Yeah, I know,” he grounds out.
That’s the injury talking. Mood swings. It has to be. There’s no way it’s him remembering. Is it? He’d be more pissed.
He frowns, letting out another sigh. “Sorry,” he says.
“It’s okay.”
“This just really sucks.”
“I know it does. I mean, not personally, obviously, but I can imagine. Sucks on this end too. Watching what I have to say? It’s not easy, but we want to make sure you’re healing the way you should. I don’t want to do something that could compromise you or make it worse.”
He nods and says, “But there is something, right?”
“Kind of,” I admit.
He nods. “Can you tell me without telling me? Did I do something wrong?”
Chris was told he was drunk during the accident. He wasn’t told how bad his drinking was before that. Honestly, of all the things, I hope that’s something he doesn’t remember. I’ll take him hating me if he doesn’t hate himself.
“Without saying too much…” I blow out a breath. “I’ll say that a lot of things changed.”
“Between us?”
“Yes,” I answer carefully. “But others too. Some stuff happened, and we just weren’t the same.”
He opens his eyes then, lifting his head to look at me.
“Us… was it something I did?” he asks carefully.
“No,” I state. Maybe not the entire truth, but I’m not putting this on him. The issues we had could have been fixed regardless of his drinking. I was trying to help him with that. I could have handled it, made him better. What happened to us was because of me and what I did. Had Chris never found me and Cole, things with us would have been mended one day. I just needed more time to figure it out. It’s what I should have been doing instead of messing around with his father.
“Something you did?” he asks carefully.
“Yes.” The word comes out quiet and raspy.
I hold his gaze, waiting for him to call me out. To remember. To talk shit and be mad.
“I’m sure whatever it was wasn’t a big deal,” he says.
“It was.”
He smirks, running his palm along the top of the water. “Then I guess it’s a good thing I can’t remember.”
I don’t smile though, and he frowns.
“What about when you do?” I ask softly.
Chris opens his mouth to speak, but we’re interrupted by Cole.
“Pizza!” he calls out.
When he reaches us, he moves one of the end tables closer to the side of the hot tub between us and puts the pizza down.
“Don’t get any sauce, grease, or meat in my hot tub,” Cole says sternly. The exact way he’d say it when we were kids.
Chris chuckles. “There’s already meat in here.”
I scoff. “You’re so dumb.”
He winks at me, then leans over to grab a slice.
“You boys need anything else?” Cole asks, his eyes on Chris.
“Water,” Chris says. “Please.”
Cole heads back inside to get the water and brings us each a bottle a moment later. Then he leaves again. Chris and I eat in silence.
“Why don’t you put music on?” I say, unable to handle the silence anymore. Chris nods, grabbing his phone and putting the music on. It plays from the speaker on his phone. “Connect it to the outside speakers.” I gesture upwards. Chris looks up, brows furrowing.
“Huh. Must be new.” He scrolls through his phone, clicking something, and a moment later, the music plays through the speakers. He grins. “So glad my phone made it. Dad is such a genius with this shit. Bet I asked him to do this, and he did.”
Bet he did. Because Cole is a good father.
But then something hits me, and my stomach sours. Is everything still on his phone? His texts? Did we ever exchange anything about this in text? What about stuff between him and Cole? Did he talk to anyone else about what he saw? Fuck, if he goes through there and finds something…
“Whatever you did to piss me off, would you do it again?”
His words come out of nowhere, causing me to nearly choke.
“What?” I ask, reaching for my bottle of water. I know what he asked me, but I need a second to think about it.
“Would you do it again?” he asks, taking another bite of his pizza. He seems so calm about this. So nonchalant. He really believes what I did wasn’t horrible. That I wouldn’t do anything to hurt him so badly.
Would I do it again?
No. I want to, so fucking badly, but no. I won’t go there with Cole again, because I won’t risk my relationship with Chris.
“Not if the outcome was the same,” I answer honestly.
“So, it’s something you wanted to do?”
I shake my head, sighing heavily and dropping my half-eaten pizza back into the box. I’m no longer hungry. “Why are we talking about this?”
He takes a deep breath, and answers, “I like how I feel right now. It’s strange. I feel so free. Relieved. Like I’d been weighed down for so long, and now I’m just… not. I’ve been putting pieces together and have a feeling I wasn’t in a great place before my accident, so maybe getting information now will help me see clearly if my memories come back. Maybe if I see things from your perspective now, if you explain it to me without explaining it to me, I won’t get mad at you again if I remember.”
Goddamnit.
This is why I can’t do this to Chris. Why he’s my best friend. He is such a good person, and I could cry right now. Even without remembering, he understands that he wasn’t doing so good. The accident being caused by drinking is enough of a hint to that, but something else is going on in his brain too. He understands that he feels better, even though he doesn’t remember feeling bad. Chris doesn’t think I would do something to hurt him without a good reason. Because he believes in me, trusts me, and that hurts a lot for so many reasons. Chris is trying to understand where I’m coming from to make peace with what I did to him, even though he has no idea how bad it is.
“You’ll get mad,” I clarify.
“But you said you wouldn’t do it again. Meaning it was a mistake. Obviously our friendship means something to you, because what it was, you want to do it. Meaning, you’re putting me before you.”
“Our friendship means everything, Chris,” I say seriously, and I don’t think he understands just how much I mean that.
He simply shrugs, reaching for another slice.