Chapter 48 Bastian
BASTIAN
from scratch /fr?m skraCH/: adverb
The bacon pops and sizzles, sending up a spray of grease that catches the edge of my wrist. I don’t flinch. After everything I’ve been through, a little hot fat barely registers.
Seventy-two hours ago, I was bleeding out on Georgia Hunter’s bathroom floor while she stitched my gut closed. Now, I’m standing at a stove in suburban Skokie, flipping strips of Smithfield and pushing eggs around a nonstick pan.
What a fucking head trip.
Through the walls, I catch the low exchange of voices from the bedroom. Georgia and Eliana are in there, talking. I can’t make out words, just the cadence of conversation—long pauses, then rushing sentences, intermixed with the occasional wet sound that I think might be crying.
It’s probably for the best that I can’t hear specifics. Whatever’s happening in there isn’t mine to witness.
The wound in my abdomen throbs with every twist of my torso and stretch for the spatula. Georgia’s stitches are holding, but the tissue underneath is angry. A constant, thudding reminder that none of this is normal. Pain to keep me focused on the task at hand.
Sage comes into the kitchen a few minutes later, just as I’m dumping a batch of scrambled eggs off the skillet. The sight of him makes me clench up, which makes the stitches pull, which makes the pain twinge, which makes me grimace, so when he meets my eyes, he’s greeted with a scowl.
He returns it in kind.
Fuck me. We’ve hugged, but we haven’t truly talked yet and it’s long overdue. I slide a plate of eggs and bacon toward him without comment.
He accepts it with a muttered “thanks,” his eyes falling down and away from me.
I throw another slab of bacon on the pan and watch grease pool in the rim of the cast iron. Sage picks at his eggs with his fork, pushing them around more than eating them.
“You gonna stare at the pan all day, or are you gonna say something?” he finally asks.
“Wasn’t sure you wanted me to,” I answer neutrally.
“Yeah, well.” He shoves a bite into his mouth and chews aggressively. “Silence is worse.”
He’s right. It is. But every sentence I draft in my head sounds like a pathetic excuse, and Sage has heard enough of those to last a lifetime. So I just stand there, spatula in hand, waiting for him to tell me what he needs.
He stares at his eggs. I stare at the grease. A Mexican standoff with no prize other than pointless pride that’s long past its sell-by date.
In the end, I break first.
The spatula raps against the counter as I set it down and turn to face him fully. The bacon keeps sizzling behind me, but I don’t care if it burns. This matters more.
“I’m sorry, Sage.”
He looks up, fork frozen halfway to his mouth.
“Not the bullshit sorry I’ve been throwing around for years,” I continue. “This is a real one. I left you on the floor that night.” My hands tighten into fists at my sides. “I became the exact thing I swore I’d never be, the thing I’ve spent sixteen years trying to protect you from.”
Sage’s jaw tightens, but he doesn’t interrupt.
“I’m not going to explain why I did it. You already know, and it doesn’t matter anyway.
” I force myself to hold his gaze even though every instinct screams at me to look away.
“What matters is that I failed you. Again. I know that. I’m not asking you to forgive me.
I just need you to know that I see it. I see what I did. ”
He doesn’t say anything right away. The bacon keeps sizzling and smoke rises up into the vent hood. I don’t dare move.
Then he sets his fork down. “Do you have any idea what it was like?” he asks.
“Not just the kidnapping, but that night. Lying on the floor of our apartment for hours, Basti. I couldn’t get back into my chair.
I tried. I tried so fucking hard, and I just—” He shakes his head.
“I kept thinking you’d come home. Any minute, you’d be back to pick me up. But you didn’t.”
I still don’t move.
“You want to know the worst part?” He’s shaking now, sixteen years old and trembling with a rage that’s been building for weeks—no, months—no, years.
“It felt exactly like after the accident. When my legs first stopped working and I had to learn that my body wasn’t mine anymore.
That helplessness. That humiliation. And you—you promised me, Basti.
You looked me in the eyes and you swore you’d never let anything bad happen to me again. ”
“I remember,” I manage to choke out.
“Yeah.” Sage’s mouth twists up in disgust. “So do I.”
His hatred is tangible. It’s like hands around my throat, or barbed wire embedding in my skin. Behind me, the bacon’s gone from sizzling to smoking, but I don’t turn around.
Instead, I do something I should have done a long time ago: I move around the counter and lower myself to my knees beside his wheelchair, ignoring the scream of protest from my stitches.
Eye level. Like how I did when he was eight years old and resented people towering over him.
“I can’t undo it,” I say. “I would if I could, but I can’t give back the hours you spent on that floor. I’d take away all those fucked-up feelings if I could, too, but I can’t do that, either.”
His eyes are wet, but he doesn’t look away.
“I can only promise you this: From now on, I’m choosing differently.” I swallow hard. “You’re sixteen, Sage. You deserved better than a brother who disappears into the dark and expects you to just trust that he’ll come back.”
I despise how long the next moment lasts.
Sage stares at my face and studies me forever, because he’s waiting for the other shoe to drop.
His whole life, he’s been trained to expect a gotcha moment.
How can you put your faith in anything good when it’s inevitably followed by disappointment?
I’m the one to blame for that, I know. But it kills me nonetheless to see the suspicion that lives permanently in his eyes.
He could hate me forever. I knew a long time ago that that was one of many possible outcomes.
And yet I hold still anyway and let him look. I’ve got nothing to hide anymore. Everything is out in the light.
Whatever he finds must satisfy him, because his shoulders finally drop and some of the tension bleeds out of his posture. He exhales slowly. “I’m still pissed,” he warns. “And I’m not going to pretend everything is fine just because you gave a nice speech.”
“I wouldn’t expect you to.” I pause, then add, “It was a nice speech, though, right?”
He doesn’t laugh. “But—” He pauses, jaw grinding. “I’m willing to try. That’s all I can offer right now.”
My throat locks up. “That’s more than I deserve,” I finally say. “Thank you.”
The smoke alarm saves me from having to say anything else. I lunge for the stove and yank the pan off the burner, scraping the woodchips of charred bacon into the trash while Sage wheels over to fan a dish towel at the shrieking detector.
“Nice work, Chef Boyardee,” he deadpans once the beeping stops.
“Shut up and eat your eggs, smart-ass.”
I’m restarting with fresh bacon when Sage clears his throat. “One more question.” He pushes a piece of egg around his plate with studied nonchalance. “You and Eliana… that’s still, like, a thing, right?”
My hand stills on the spatula.
“I’m not blind, Bastian,” he adds. “I heard you two last night. The walls aren’t that thick.”
Heat crawls up my neck. “Sage—”
“I’m just asking.” He shrugs, but his eyes are sharp. “Are you in love with her?”
I set down the spatula once more. “Yeah,” I say. “I am.”
Sage absorbs this with a slow nod. Then he fixes me with a hard stare that seems far too wizened for the bratty teen I once knew.
“She’s good, you know,” he says. “Like, actually a good person. In her soul. Not fake-good or trying-to-impress-you good.” He looks down at his hands.
“She deserves someone who won’t keep screwing up. ”
“I know.”
Sage leans forward with sudden intensity.
“Then don’t mess it up again. Whatever it takes, Basti, whatever you have to do or become, do it.
Don’t let her slip away.” He shakes his head and adds in a wry undertone, “Besides, I can’t take any more of you two moping around about each other. It’s fuckin’ depressing.”
Before I can figure out what to say to that, Zeke stumbles into the kitchen with a yawn so theatrical it borders on performance art. “Who the hell is ruining bacon? Do they not realize that there is a Michelin-starred chef in our midst?”
“That chef seems to forget who he works for,” I drawl dryly.
“Well, aren’t you just as charming as ever?” He slides onto a barstool and reaching for the plate of eggs I’ve just finished. The moment between Sage and me dissolves into the clinking of forks, Zeke’s stream-of-consciousness chatter, and the cough of the coffee maker kicking on.
Yasmin appears a minute later wearing one of Zeke’s shirts, her hair a disaster zone of tangles and pillow creases. She makes a beeline for the coffee without acknowledging any of us, which is a little strange. I wonder if there’s something new going on with them.
Across the counter, I catch Sage’s eye. He gives me a small nod. Almost imperceptible. As he does, something loosens in my chest. We’re not fixed. We might never be fully fixed. But broken isn’t such a bad place to restart from, I’m learning.
Just as long as we’re building each other back up.