“Maybe I hated him because he was better than me at everything.”
“Siblings hate each other as much as they love each other. That doesn’t mean you wanted or willed this to happen. That rivalry is a normal thing. There’s jealousy one minute and horsing around the next. There’s tattling to your parents one second and then sneaking into her bed the next to giggle and tell ghost stories when you’re supposed to be asleep. It’s a yin and yang that no one else understands unless they have a sibling.”
“I was jealous of him. Plain and simple. Of the girls who fell at his feet. Of the constant praise he got on the ice. Of the grades that came easily, while I studied all the time . . . of fucking everything.”
“Of the things your father pitted you against each other over.” I’m quiet when I speak, afraid I’ve overstepped, but I heard the animosity when he shared his story. “That doesn’t mean you’re at fault. That doesn’t mean you don’t deserve to have a life. That doesn’t mean you don’t get to love and be loved. To laugh and have someone to laugh with.”
“It’s the fact that he was better than me,” he says with a shrug, as if he didn’t hear me. I don’t take offense, because maybe he didn’t want to hear it yet. It may be background noise to his thoughts right now but when the emotions settle, he’ll remember what I said, and I hope he’ll know it’s true. “Maybe that’s why I resented him. He was always perfect, and I was always the one who needed more work. Hell, maybe I secretly wanted the spotlight and was sick of being in his shadow.” He chuckles, but there’s so much sadness in the words. “Christ, that sounds stupid. We were the same in every way, but that he had more talent in his little pinkie than I did in total played a part.”
“I find that hard to believe,” I murmur.
“Go dig up our high school records. He still holds a couple that were made through our junior year. Could you imagine what he would have done if he had one more year?” He turns to look at me now, the city and morning sunshine at his back.
“I hear what you’re saying, Hunter, but these are all normal things kids go through. I can tell you athletes peak at different times. Some people have natural talent while others have more heart and have to work harder to get it. But none of this”—I point to the space between us where the reasons I’ve pointed out are hovering like neon signs—“is why Jonah is paralyzed.”
“How can you say that?” He raises his voice, but it loses its gusto on the last word.
“Because you didn’t make Jonah get behind the wheel,” I say so he might hear me again. “Sure, you were pissed at him and didn’t get your mom like you were supposed to. Yes, you were duped by his girlfriend, who apparently wanted to brag she’d slept with both twins, but you, Hunter Maddox, didn’t cause this. You didn’t make him slide behind the wheel. He was already drinking, knowing he was picking up Terry Fischer and taking her to the dance. He had your mom’s car, yet he was drinking.” I pause, watching him contemplate something it seems he never considered—or rather, let himself consider. “And,” I continue quietly, “you sure as hell aren’t the reason your parents can’t seem to step away from being Jonah’s caregiver and be supportive parents to you.”
Because that’s the other crucial part of this he’s not addressing. He not only lost his brother that day in the everyday sense he was used to, but he also lost his parents. They became so busy taking care of and cruelly coronating Jonah, that they forgot they had another son living and dying for the affection and approval any kid craves from their parents.
And the look on his face says I just hit the nail on the head with the other part of this whole tragedy—the little kid in him deserves love and affection instead of expectations and blame.
“But—”
“You didn’t give your dad the heart attack, and you sure as hell don’t deserve to live your life trying to make up for something you had no control over.”
“Stop. Please, just stop,” he says to me, covering his ears to prevent my words from hitting them.
“No, Hunter. No.” I step toward him, toward his disbelieving eyes and shaking head. “I’m not going to stop, because you need to hear this.” I reach out and grab his hands from his ears so he can hear me and whisper, “You need to hear you’re not at fault. You need to stop drowning in guilt and burning in anger that’s not yours to bear.”
His eyes well and his chin trembles, and every part of me wishes I could convince him of the truth in my words. “You don’t understand. No one does.” He jerks his hands out of mine as his anger takes hold as his moment of vulnerability and need give way to self-loathing and fury. “It’s like every time I see him there in that goddamn prison of a chair or bed, I hate myself even more. Do you know what it’s like to sit there and know what he could have been? The incredible things he could have done? I do. I know a fraction of what he feels because it was like that when I was a kid. Sitting by while your brother did everything you were dying inside to do, but couldn’t. No one was ever as good as Jonah. In our house, at our school, at our church. Not a single fucking person was.”
“Is that why you’re always angry?” I ask, trying to connect dots on a chart I can’t see.
“You’re goddamn right, I’m angry.” His voice thunders around the small space, his hands fisting and his shoulders tensing. “Don’t you get it? I’ve been running so damn long trying to chase the ghost of who he could have been, that it’s the reason I’m burned out. That’s why I hate the game I used to love but can’t say a damn word, because who the fuck am I to complain? I make millions a year. I have records I’m chasing. I’m living the damn dream. All that’s left is the Stanley Cup, and I’m going to win it if it kills me, because it’s the least I can fucking do for him.”
“But what about you? When do you get to have a life? When do you get to have someone to go home to at night? To wrap your arms around her and then lose yourself in when shit gets too tough? To laugh with, to fight with, to live with. When do you get to live, Hunter?”
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
HUNTER
SHE DOESN’T UNDERSTAND.
That’s all I keep thinking as she watches me and says things to me I don’t want to hear.
As I reject what I know are truths that she keeps saying, keeps repeating, keeps trying to rewire in my head.
When do you get to live, Hunter?
But there is so much anger, so much sadness, so much goddamn everything, it’s hard to hear anything through it.
“You know the irony in this? I have all of this”—I throw my hands up—“to thank my dad for.” I laugh, but there’s no humor. “I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for him and his punishments. That’s the fucking blessing and curse, now isn’t it?”
“It’s whatever you want it to be. Make what used to be your curse, now be your blessing.” They’re words meant to fix but nowhere near as easy as they sound.
I know it.
She knows it.
And yet she says them anyway.