“I’m sorry you found out in the worst possible way,” I say. “It’s not how I wanted to do it.”
“What did you want?” he asks quietly.
“I wanted both of us to be there. I wanted to sit you down and explain everything to you. Apologize for the suddenness of it all, for not telling you right away.” I swallow.
“I wanted you to look at me and see your sister, someone who never meant to hurt you. I wanted to tell you that I’m scared and happy and not okay and that I need my brother.”
Jason rubs his palm over his mouth and then props it on the back of his neck, elbow out. It’s a posture I know from when hewas a hotheaded teen trying not to punch drywall. “He’s my best friend,” he says in disbelief. “He’s— he was my family.”
“He still is,” I insist, stepping forward. “And now even more so, but maybe in a different way. It’s complicated, not… tidy. I’m not asking you to forgive either of us for keeping this from you. I’m not asking you to like this. I’m just asking you to”—I search for the right verb—“stick. Just be here.”
“Where’s Ben? Why isn’t he here?” Jason asks, jaw tightly clenched.
“He doesn’t even know I’m here,” I say. “I asked Mom to watch the shop for an hour because I knew you’d be here. I didn’t tell him.”
The room is very quiet. Out past the glass, a barbell clinks to a rack; someone laughs too loudly, and it echoes. My stomach rolls once. I put a hand there and breathe, in through my nose, out through my mouth.
Jason’s shoulders drop a fraction. He looks older all of a sudden, or maybe just exactly his age, but with all the joy stripped away.
I’m sorry to see it happen, especially because I’m the one who caused it.
“Are you in love with him?” he asks, not accusing. Just trying to figure out the details of the new reality he’s found himself in.
I open my mouth. Close it. Try again. “I don’t know yet. I know there’s something there, though. Something that—” I close my lips, wanting the words to be the right ones and not knowing how to say it. “Whatever it is, pretending it isn’t there hasn’t worked for either of us.”
“And what about him?” Jason presses. “Is he ‘sticking’? Because his own dad—"
“He’s not walking away,” I cut in, not wanting to hear the rest of it. “He wanted to come to the appointment, even when I told him he didn’t have to. He’s scared too, but he’s trying.”
Jason paces three steps and back, the way he does when he’s working something out in his head. He stops with his hand on the back of his chair, knuckles white, like touching something keeps him from floating off.
“You still should have told me,” he says, and it’s not the explosion from before. More like an afterthought.
“I know,” I say. “We should have. I’m sorry.”
For a long moment, neither of us talks. The typical sounds of the gym seep through the wall. I can hear my own heartbeat.
He stares at the floor and then up at the ceiling and then at me again.
“What now?” he asks finally, and I hear the effort it takes him to ask it.
“Now?” I say. “I want you to promise me you won’t go find Ben and hit him again.” I hold up a hand before he can speak. “I get why you did. I do. But it didn’t help. It just… hurt all three of us.”
He looks at his fist, as if reliving the memory of hitting his friend—the hurt that led to it.
“Just hear him out first,” I say.
He breathes in and out through his nose, once, twice, like he’s coaching himself through the last rep of a difficult workout. “I can’t promise I’m going to be cool about this.”
“I’m not asking you to be cool,” I say. “I’m just asking you to talk to him. Just talk— and listen.”
He makes a face. “I’m not ready for that yet.”
“That’s fine. Whenever you are,” I say, clenching my hands in front of me.
He drops into his chair like all the energy has just left his body. He scrubs both hands over his face. When he looks at me again, the fury has receded enough that I can see the exhaustion, the dregs of hurt. “How are you? With all of this? Physically, I mean.”
“Doing all right,” I say. “Hungry. Nauseated. Weirdly obsessed with lemon anything.”
