18. Gideon
Gideon
The family room had a window overlooking a courtyard that was mostly dead grass and bare trees. I stared out there because anything was better than looking at my brother.
Noah sat across from me with his hands shoved inside the sleeves of a gray sweatshirt.
He’d lost weight in the two weeks since I’d seen him in that hospital bed and had shadows under his eyes that hadn’t been there before.
Or maybe they had. Maybe they were there in the summer when I visited, and I’d never looked closely enough to notice.
Dad had taken the chair next to Noah, and I’d automatically gone for the one across from both of them, with Dr. Patel sitting between us, not quite part of the circle, a notepad balanced on one knee.
“So,” she said. “Does anyone want to start?”
Wasn’t it her job to ask us questions? What in God’s name did she think the three of us might say? I wasn’t surprised when Dad and Noah volunteered nothing. Good to know some things hadn’t changed, and we were all as bad as each other.
Dad cleared his throat. “We could talk about what happens when Noah comes home and where he lives.”
“Fuck no,” Noah snapped. “I’m going back to my place, and I don’t want to talk anymore about that.”
Dad’s jaw tightened. I watched the old pattern forming in front of me. Dad pushing because he didn’t know how else to help, Noah shutting down because he didn’t know how to let him. Ten years ago, I would’ve stayed quiet. Probably five years ago too.
“Then don’t talk about it,” I said. Dad and Noah both looked at me. “What? I’m right. No point in putting something on the table to discuss when one of us isn’t ready to go there.”
Dad sighed. “We need a plan. Gideon is going back to Rochester tomorrow, and he can’t just leave without knowing what happens next.”
“I’m not just leaving anything,” I snapped.
“I didn’t mean it like you were deserting Noah,” Dad said then winced.
Noah stared down at his hands.
Dr. Patel leaned forward. “Maybe we should talk about Gideon leaving.”
I blinked at her. “Why? I’m going back to Rochester because I have a job.”
“He plays hockey,” Noah said. I looked at him, and he looked back. What did he mean by that? He didn’t sound as if he was making a point, but I read into it anyway.
Still playing hockey. Still alive.
Then he added, “The Copperheads probably want their star winger back. And you’ve missed four games at least, right?”
“Five,” I corrected him.
Noah blinked then counted them off on his fingers. “Blizzard, Salt Cats, Ironhawks, Timberwolves?”
“You forgot the Colts.”
“I did?” He frowned, closing his eyes briefly. “Was that the night I…”
“Yeah.”
“Fuck.”
“They won. Three-two.”
“Fuck yes!” Noah sat forward in his chair then caught himself and slumped back as if he’d just remembered where he was. I couldn’t believe he knew the teams, let alone that he cared about the results. What else didn’t I know about my big brother?
How about that he was a mess and needed my help?
Dr. Patel glanced between us. “Gideon, how do you feel about leaving tomorrow?”
I hated therapy questions. Dr. Ellison had spent years asking them, and I still hated every fucking one.
“Fine.” Noah snorted and I glared at him. “What?”
“That’s your answer for everything.”
“No, it isn’t.”
“You said fine when you broke your wrist in high school.”
“It wasn’t broken.”
“It was purple.”
“Bruised.”
“You wore a cast.” Noah stared at me. I stared back. Then, somehow, his mouth moved, barely, a tiny twitch at one corner. It was gone almost immediately, but I’d seen it. So had Dad. Dad looked away fast. Fuck. My throat tightened.
Then, Dr. Patel ruined everything by asking, “When was the last time the two of you joked together?”
Neither of us answered. Because I knew. The lake. Before the lake. Before Ethan. We’d been brothers before Ethan died. I’d forgotten that, or maybe I’d made myself forget because remembering Noah as someone I’d loved made everything that came after hurt more.
“A long time ago,” I said, and Noah nodded.
Noah rubbed his thumb over the cuff of his sweatshirt. “I don’t know what Gid wants me to do.” I went still. Dad looked at him. Noah kept staring at his hands. “I keep saying sorry, and I don’t know if it’s doing anything.”
Noah looked at me. “What can I say to fix this?”
“How am I supposed to know?”
“You need to tell me,” he almost pleaded.
“I don’t know!” My voice bounced off the walls. Nobody spoke. I pressed my palms against my thighs. “I don’t know,” I said again, quieter. “That’s the problem. You ask me to tell you how to fix it, and I don’t know how.”
He swallowed. “I can’t take back what happened. I can’t go back there and fix my fucked up brain.”
“No.”
“I can’t give you those years back.”
“No.”
He hunched in the chair, covering his eyes. “I c…can’t bring Ethan back.”
I looked at him. Really looked at him. At the brother I’d thought hated me. The brother I’d missed. The brother I blamed for blaming me. The brother who’d nearly died because while I’d been carrying the guilt he’d given me, he’d been carrying his own.
“I don’t know yet.” His face crumpled. “But you stay alive while we work it out.”
Noah dropped his gaze. “Okay.”
“No more messages where you say sorry and then you try to leave.” His breath hitched. “No more, I’m sorry, Gid. I can’t keep doing this.”
Dad covered his mouth. Noah’s tears spilled over.
“I mean it,” I said. “Please, Noah, if you get that bad again, you call someone. Dad. Me. Here. Emergency services. I don’t care. You call. And I’ll talk for six fucking hours when I’m driving here.”
“Gideon—”
“Noah.” I rubbed my palms over my jeans. “I’ll answer,” I repeated. “I can’t promise I’ll always know what to say, but I’ll answer.”
His mouth trembled. “Okay.”
Dr. Patel let the silence sit between us for a while, then she said, “Gideon, what responsibility do you believe you have for Ethan’s death now?”
I stared at her. We’d been doing so well. “Seriously?”
“Yes.”
I leaned back. Dad looked down. Noah went very still.
“I didn’t dare him.”
“No.”
“I didn’t know about the dare.”
“No.”
“I tried to get him off the ice.”
“Yes.”
“I nearly went through myself.”
“Yes.”
I sighed. “So apparently none.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
Fuck therapists. I looked at the courtyard where a man in a dark coat walked slowly along the path with someone beside him. They stopped near a bench, talked for a moment, then kept going.
“I was fifteen. He was thirteen. I was supposed to look after him.”
“According to whom?”
I glanced at Dad. “Everyone.” That was an evasion. No one else wanted me to keep an eye on Ethan. It was only one person. I opened my mouth, but nothing came out.
Dad shifted and looked destroyed. “Me. I told you to keep an eye on him.”
“You didn’t tell me to take him skating,” I defended my dad.
“No.”
“You didn’t tell me to let him go out onto thin ice.”
“No.”
“So, this isn’t yours.”
“I know that.”
“Then don’t take it.”
Dad’s eyes filled. “I’m not trying to.”
“Sounds like it.”
He scrubbed a hand over his face. “I was his father.”
“And I was his brother.”
“I was his brother too,” Noah whispered.
There we were, three men trying to claim the same dead kid, as if whoever hurt most got to keep him.
Dr. Patel spoke quietly after we all sat still as stone. “What if nobody owns what happened?”
Nobody moved.
“What if Ethan’s death isn’t something one of you has to carry?”
I stared at the floor. That sounded too easy. Ten years of pain reduced to one fucking sentence.
“What happened to Ethan was a tragedy,” she continued. “Noah made a cruel and reckless mistake when he dared him. Gideon was unable to save him. Your father wasn’t there. Those are facts. But none of you made the ice break.”
My eyes burned. Beside me, Dad sniffled, and Noah cried silently. I didn’t. Not yet.
“Acceptance doesn’t mean saying what happened was okay,” Dr. Patel said.
“It doesn’t mean Gideon has to forgive Noah today.
It doesn’t mean Noah stops taking responsibility for his actions.
It means accepting something none of you have been able to accept for ten years.
” I knew what she was going to say, and I didn’t want her to. “Ethan died,” she finished.
I closed my eyes. There it was. Ethan died.
I’d spent ten years adding words after that. Ethan died because I hadn’t stopped him. Ethan died because I wasn’t fast enough. Ethan died because I should have known. Noah had his own reasons. Dad probably had a thousand. But stripped of all of them, there were only two words: Ethan died.
“I miss him,” Noah whispered.
That broke me. I bent forward, elbows on my knees, and covered my face. “Me too.”
“I miss Mom as well,” Noah added.
Dad made a broken sound. For a while none of us did anything except cry, not neatly, not quietly. Dad ran out of tissues and stole Noah’s box. Noah laughed while crying, and that made me laugh, and that made Dad cry harder—until we were all a mess.
Eventually Noah wiped his face. “I want you back in my life, Gid. I know I don’t deserve to ask that.”
“Don’t.”
His face fell. “Okay.”
“No, I mean don’t do that.”
“What?”
“Decide what you deserve.” He blinked. “I’m fucking sick of everyone deciding what they deserve.” Including me. Especially me. “I don’t know if we can go back,” I added. “We can’t be who we were.”
“I know.”
I reached across the space between us. He looked at my hand, then took it. “You’ve got me.” His fingers tightened around mine. “We start there.”
Dad put his hand over his eyes.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Noah muttered.
Dad lowered his hand. “What?”
“You’re crying again.”
“I’m allowed.”
“You’re doing that old-man snuffle.”
“I do not snuffle.”
“You absolutely snuffle,” I said.
Dad stared at me. Noah started laughing. I joined him. And then Dad did too. Three of us—still one missing. Always one missing. But for the first time, that didn’t make the three of us feel like a failure.
Dad walked me out after the session. The cold hit hard the second the doors opened, sharp enough to make me zip my jacket to my throat.
“You seeing Noah again before you go?” he asked.