Chapter 52
Ethan
It’s been three days and I’m still sleeping in Assad’s room, or at least pretending to.
I’m exhausted all day but when night rolls around, I’m totally wired, no chance of sleep.
Thoughts of Mia, Breanna, Chris, Clive, all the people I have disappointed and could still disappoint prodding me awake.
Any second now the axe could fall. A braver man would go to Clive himself, confess, get it over with, but I can’t.
I just can’t. The team is the only thing keeping me sane.
Outside of lectures, tutorials and training, I behave like a ghost. Insubstantial and disconnected.
It’s the only way I know how to keep it all together, just like summer all over again.
‘Taylor.’
Clive gives me the nod as I’m stuffing my things into my duffel at the end of training and I trudge behind him into his office.
‘What’s going on?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Is that right?’ He sits in the chair behind his desk. I stay where I am in the doorway. ‘Because I thought I’d signed a striker and a captain, not a shop dummy in a pair of Predators.’
‘I wear Nikes,’ I say, but he’s not interested.
‘Whatever’s going on, pack it up or get it dealt with. Tomorrow is a big game, I need you focused, the boys deserve your best. Do I make myself understood?’
‘Yes,’ I reply, staring at my shoes. ‘I got it.’
‘Then get out and get some rest. I’ll see you tomorrow when you’ve got your head on straight.’
And like any good soldier, I do as I’m told.
Even though the weather has been shitty all week, I’ve been spending a lot of time outside.
Mostly down by the river, watching the crew team train.
There’s a spot to the right of the boathouse where my cell phone gets enough reception to log on and check in on everyone back home from my newly created finsta.
It’s social media self-harm, watching everyone else go on with their lives, but I still scroll through through my own photos, anything from before July.
It hurts to look at the way things were, but I deserve it.
I can’t believe I don’t have any pictures of Mia, just memories, but they’re sharp enough to cut deeper than a bunch of pixels on a screen.
I’m pathetic. Almost twenty-one and falling apart.
At my age, my mom was married to my dad, their paths chosen, futures already set in motion.
If you’d asked me six months ago, I’d have said I was just as locked in but now I’m a split second away from everything imploding.
If he could see me now, huddled on a river bank, almost in tears, my dad would tear me apart.
But my mom … maybe my mom would at least try to understand.
I bring up my contacts and hit the call button.
I don’t need her to lie to me and pretend everything’s going to be okay, I just need to hear a familiar voice.
The call connects and someone answers the phone on the second ring.
‘Hello?’
It’s not the familiar voice I was expecting.
‘Hello?’ Chris says again. ‘Anyone there?’
I’m sweating, doubled up on the banks of the river, tongue-tied.
‘Cool, I’m hanging up now. I paused my game to answer this, you dick—’
‘Chris? It’s me, it’s Ethan.’
The words burst out of me before he can end the call. I figure he’s still going to hang up on my ass but at least I got to speak to him for a second.
‘Ethan?’
I screw up my eyes until fluorescent specks appear, and blow out a long, thin channel of air through pursed lips.
‘Yeah, it’s me.’
Neither of us says anything and maybe ten seconds go by.
Doesn’t seem like much until you’re on the phone for the first time with your little brother who has completely cut you out of his life for the last three months, months that felt like decades.
My heart pounds with the hope that he’ll say something then crashes with the fear that he won’t.
Which is worse, excommunication or angry words? I don’t know.
‘What’s going on?’ he says eventually.
Almost exactly the same question Clive asked not a half hour earlier, but this time, I have to cover my mouth to stop him from hearing my sob.
‘You know,’ I choke out, clenching my stomach muscles to control myself. ‘School stuff.’
‘Soccer’s going good? You winning?’
‘Yeah, we’re winning.’
It’s the most mundane conversation we’ve ever had but if I got hit by a truck right now, I’d die happy. Chris is talking to me.
‘How about you?’ I ask, swiping at hot tears with cold hands, desperate to keep him on the line.
‘How am I?’ he repeats, and I could kick myself. What a stupid fucking question. ‘You talk to Mom lately?’
‘No. I, uh, I’ve been busy.’
And she hasn’t called me since I got here.
‘She’s been pretty busy, driving me to the hospital and all that kinda stuff,’ Chris says. ‘But I’m not going in so much now. Only twice a week for physical therapy and the hospital says I can do that from home soon. If things keep improving, they’ll send a nurse out to the house.’
‘For real?’
‘For real. Now all the swelling has gone down, the injury isn’t as bad as we thought. Doc called it “spinal shock”. He thinks I’ll make a full recovery.’
It’s the best news, better than I could’ve dreamed of. If this is karmic pay-off for me losing my shot at Harchester academy, I’m in, I’m all the way in.
‘Been seeing this other doctor too.’ There’s a long pause. ‘A psychologist.’
He swallows hard down the line and I hold my breath. ‘At first Dad said I didn’t need it, but I heard Mom say that’s only because it isn’t covered by insurance.’
We both laugh but there’s no joy in the sound. We both know who our father is.
‘The spinal guy, the neurosurgeon, he recommended this specialist who helps kids who have been in accidents. He’s pretty smart. Funny too. He played soccer at Duke.’
‘Blue Devils are a hell of a team,’ I say, rocking back and forth where I sit.
He’s going to be okay, he’s going to be okay, he’s going to be okay.
‘Ethan?’
‘Chris?’
‘I’m glad you called. I was talking to the psychologist a couple of days ago and, uh, I was gonna call you.’
‘You were?’
‘I remember, Ethan,’ he says, just a whisper. ‘I remember what happened.’
‘What are you talking about, buddy?’ I say, clenching my jaw. ‘Remember what?’
‘That you weren’t the one driving the Jeep that night. That it was me.’
It’s a shot of adrenaline straight to my heart.
A sob forces its way out of me, and I try to hold it back but it’s too late. Tears are streaming down my face and there’s no way to stop them because four thousand miles away, my little brother is crying too.
‘I didn’t remember, Eth, I swear. When I woke up in the hospital, I couldn’t remember a thing and Dad told me you were driving so I believed him.’
‘Calm down, it’s okay. You don’t have to explain.’
‘I’m so fucking sorry,’ he says through heavy gulps of air.
‘I don’t know what happened, I was talking to the shrink, going over it all for the thousandth time and it was there in my mind, clear as day.
Me behind the wheel. He said it’s normal to forget traumatic events while you’re healing but I don’t know.
Eth,’ his voice drops low, ‘why did you do it? Why did you say it was you?’
‘Because,’ I reply, still choking on my tears. ‘I couldn’t let you go through all that.’
‘But it’s my fault. It’s all my fault you had to drop out of Marshall and go overseas.’ The words are jumpy, chopped up with emotion. ‘It’s my fault you and Breanna broke up.’
‘You don’t need to feel bad about me and Bre,’ I say. ‘We weren’t doing so great. If we were, this wouldn’t have been enough to end things.’
‘What about Mom and Dad?’ he sobs. ‘They think I can’t hear them when they’re fighting but I can and it’s always about the accident. Everything is my fault.’
My head sinks into my hand, palm propping up my forehead. We can always hear them arguing, even when they lock themselves in the garage to do it.
‘Mom and Dad have been fighting for a long time. Before you were even born, bro. Don’t try to take credit for everything.’
More sniffling from him, more heartbreak for me.
‘Chris, I need to know you’re listening to me right now,’ I say, trying to sound as strong as I can. ‘Is the doctor going to tell Mom and Dad?’
‘He says no but—’
‘Then you don’t tell anyone about this, you hear? Do not tell our parents you were driving Bre’s car that night.’
I can see the mopey expression on his face, never a kid who liked being told no.
Which is exactly how he ended up driving Breanna’s car that night in the first place.
I still can’t quite believe everyone accepted my story without asking questions.
If I’d been driving, it’d have been me who came away with the worst injuries, not Chris, but they were all too ready to believe I was the fuck-up, not my little brother.
And it was just as well given how much he’d had to drink.
‘No good can come from changing the story now. No one would believe you anyhow,’ I tell him. ‘I was driving the car, you were in the back. Don’t freak out on me, Chris. Everything is okay. I’m good, you’re gonna be all fixed up real soon, there’s nothing to worry about.’
‘But I ruined everything.’ He pauses to sniffle into something, his sleeve I bet. ‘I ruined your life.’
‘No, you didn’t. No, you didn’t.’
I stare at my phone, willing him to listen to me, to believe me. I’ve never felt so helpless in my whole life, not even when I woke up and saw him bleeding behind the wheel of Bre’s car.
‘I hate that you’re so far away. I miss you, Eth. I need to talk to someone about all this, I can’t keep lying.’
I thought my heart was completely broken but it turns out there are a few pieces left still big enough to shatter. Pressing the heel of my hand against my eyes, I bob my head, reminding myself who I am. I’m the big brother, I’m the one who fixes things, I’m the one who takes care of Chris.
‘What if I came back for a visit?’