Total pages in book: 108
Estimated words: 104802 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 524(@200wpm)___ 419(@250wpm)___ 349(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 104802 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 524(@200wpm)___ 419(@250wpm)___ 349(@300wpm)
“I don’t care. Fuck him. My concern is you,” Tiernan replies, knowing exactly where my worries lie.
Rory threads his fingers through mine, holding my hand as I drop my head against his shoulder. Our main concern is always the three of us—well, Aislin too. We’re a unit, best friends, brothers. Family is supposed to be everything in our world, but it doesn’t feel like that’s really the case—not with everyone else, at least, but it is with us. We would take on the world for each other, and nothing will ever change that. I couldn’t make it through this without them.
“I can’t believe I almost had to kick an old lady’s ass,” Rory jokes. His words do exactly what Rory was going for, making me chuckle. He’s good at being funny or acting like an idiot when we need it.
“She could have taken you,” Tiernan jokes back.
“Fuck off. I may be smaller, but I’m the best fighter out of the three of us,” Rory says, indignant.
And I add, “The biggest liar, you mean.”
We chuckle, and somehow, I feel a little better.
“I’m sorry he’s not here.” Rory dances the fingers of his free hand over the top of mine that he’s holding. We’re not more than friends—any of us. Tiernan is bisexual. He’s always been like an adult in a kid’s body, so he figures stuff out before me and Rory. I might be bi too. Who knows? I haven’t thought about it all that much. Even if I am, I wouldn’t do stuff with them. That’s just not how we are. The closeness between us goes beyond anything sexual, like we’re this truth written into the stars.
I shrug. “It is what it is.”
“He loves you,” Tiernan says.
Maybe he does, maybe he doesn’t. He’s not an asshole to me like Sloan is to Tiernan, so I guess that counts for something. “I don’t care about him,” I lie, then lean my head against Rory again, wishing I could wake up and find out this has all been a terrible nightmare.
That my mom isn’t dead and that my dad cares about me after all.
*
Ollie
Sixteen years old
I watch as Dad holds Mom’s cold hand, sitting in a chair at her bedside, bent over with his face against the mattress, and sobs. We’re in what used to be our dining room, but it was turned into Mom’s room a long time ago. It’s filled with hospital equipment, everything we’ve needed to take care of her for years, ever since the traumatic brain injury that changed our lives.
She loved hiking. She was more outdoorsy than both me and Dad, but we would all spend a lot of time in nature because she enjoyed it so much. It was her love of the outdoors that got her hurt—one wrong step, one slip, and she was tumbling down rocky terrain and hit her head.
She couldn’t walk anymore after that, couldn’t talk. Our whole world had been flipped upside down, and Dad never left her side once. We took care of her, protected her, loved her, and now she’s gone.
“Ollie, come here,” he says, and I walk over to him.
Dad wraps an arm around me in the tightest of hugs. The other hand is still holding hers, building a connection between the three of us, this bond that has always been there and always will be.
“I’m so sorry she’s gone. She loved you so much. You were her pride and joy.”
I nod, my eyes filling with tears, wetness brimming over, tears chasing each other down my face.
She did love me. I know that. Mom loved her family more than anything in this world, just like my dad does.
We sit with her for as long as we can, crying and hugging and telling stories. How funny she had been, how much she loved birthdays and playing pranks, which Dad and I would sometimes pretend to be annoyed about. Maybe we had been annoyed at the time, but these last three years since her accident, I’m sure he would have done anything for one of those pranks, same as I would have.
When they take her body away, it’s one of the hardest moments of my life, my tears hardly stopping for even a moment.
Dad and I keep ourselves busy, planning the service together, picking all her favorite things for the reception afterward.
The house feels empty when everyone leaves and it’s just Dad and me again.
“She would have thought today was beautiful,” he tells me, and I smile.
“Yeah, she would have.”
Dad sits beside me on the couch of our small home. He wraps an arm around me. “We’ll be okay, Ollie.”
He’s not talking about money, though that’s going to be an issue. Both my parents are…were teachers. Money has never been something we’ve had a lot of, and now we’re in debt because of Mom’s treatment.