Total pages in book: 137
Estimated words: 138683 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 693(@200wpm)___ 555(@250wpm)___ 462(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 138683 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 693(@200wpm)___ 555(@250wpm)___ 462(@300wpm)
In love.
In agony.
His hair was a dark russet, a deeper red than mine, though I’d always liked to believe that we’d matched.
That we favored each other.
That we were a pair.
Inseparable.
Family.
Bobby had always been the one I looked up to. Idolized. My protector.
The obnoxious big brother who gave me crap and ordered me around and told me who I could and couldn’t date, which was basically everyone, but he’d done it with big vats of love and a gentle smile.
My chest ached as I thought of how he smiled no more.
He’d sacrificed everything for me, his freedom, the nights in his early 20s when he should have been off at a bar picking up girls, in favor of working two jobs to take care of me.
When he’d had his accident, there’d been no other choice than sacrificing everything for him.
Guilt threatened to suffocate as I carefully reached out and touched the hand he kept clasped tight against his chest, his right hand the only one that had any function at all.
“How are you today?” I asked, keeping my voice low.
My eyes made a quick path over him to ensure he had everything he needed, checking that he was secure, even though I trusted his caregivers took excellent care of him, which was the exact reason I was desperate for him to remain here.
He was always freshly bathed, his clothes and bedding clean. He had daily physical therapy, and they fed him his meals regularly.
He had at least improved to the point that he could swallow when prompted, improved to the place where he could breathe on his own so his trach could be removed.
It’d made me hopeful that he would recover.
That he would walk.
Talk.
But he’d never progressed beyond that.
He was nonverbal and fairly nonresponsive, only making a few grunting sounds that I never knew if they were communication or just locked-up energy that his body expelled.
His eyes that were the same color as mine were always distant, gone to a faraway place.
A place I had no idea where he existed.
I felt desperate to meet him there. So he’d know I’d never leave him alone, that I’d never turn my back, that I loved him with every fiber of my being.
“You look good, big brother,” I murmured.
I took the fist he held against his chest, and I carefully pulled it onto his lap and opened his hand.
In it was a small, round charm, an intricate locket that made a ball, but when it was opened, it contained four small pictures.
One was of our parents, two were of him and me, and the other was of the four of us when we’d been young and our family had been complete.
This…this was how I knew he remembered.
Because he kept me close when I was away.
I set the charm aside and wound my fingers through his.
He breathed a heavy breath, and I knew.
I knew he felt me.
So I would never stop talking to him. Would never stop communicating in the only way we could.
“Are they taking good care of you?”
I ran my thumb over the back of his hand.
“It’s beautiful out today, isn’t it? Windy last night, though. I hope it didn’t keep you awake.”
I knelt there for a minute, unsure of what to say, how to admit what I’d done.
Feeling the pressure of it, I pushed to standing and started to move around his room. I fiddled with the remote on the wheeled table that sat off to the side of his bed, touched the bouquet I’d brought him on Saturday when I’d visited him last, and glanced at his chart where the nurses and caregivers scribbled their notes.
Mostly, it was a distraction. Something to do with my hands to ward off the panic.
What if I couldn’t provide for him?
What if I couldn’t find a way?
There were a couple of new drawings on the pinboard that hung on the wall. One was from Hank, who was nineteen and a hopeless flirt. He never failed to ask me out every time he saw me in the hall.
The other was from Lynette, a young girl who had learned to paint with her mouth and spent her days out in the gardens, painting pictures for those who rarely made it outside.
I unpinned them and moved back to Bobby’s side. I pulled up a chair, angling it so I was almost facing him.
I lifted the first, the almost nondescript scribbles made by Hank.
“Get better, Bobby!” A tweak of a smile edged my mouth as I read it aloud. “Hank is always rooting for you, Bobby. He thinks one day you’re going to roam these halls with him, causing all sorts of trouble. What do you think?”
I held it up and traced my finger over Hank’s crude words.
Bobby only gave me a slow blink.
Sorrow crested.
A swelling wave.
It always felt like it was right there, ready to consume.