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“I can come back.”
“Stay.” Em’s feet were bare, her cheeks pink, her hair a rumpled mess. “I was going to grab some water, anyway.” She nudged past me, and I heard the television in the living room switch back on.
“I’m sorry,” I mumbled to Michael when I stepped into his room. “Maybe next time hang a sock over the doorknob?”
“I’ll remember that.” The smile disappeared, and he sat up. “Just taking advantage of our time together.”
His words were casual, but the ache coming from Michael echoed the one my dad lived with every day. I took it in, let it roll around in my chest, spread out, and settle.
“We’ll find Jack. He won’t hurt her, or anyone else, again,” I promised. I meant it.
“Em told me what happened, how you tried to take her pain.”
My heart skipped a sudden, painful beat. “I thought she might.”
Michael stared at the floor, feeling as unsure about how to proceed with the conversation as I did, but determined to have it. “I didn’t know you could do that.”
“It’s not something I talk about.”
“Do your parents know?”
“Mom does. Dad? He has an idea. I don’t do it for just anyone.” But Em had been so small in my arms. Tried so hard not to cry. I’d rocked her back and forth when she broke, wishing she’d let me take it all away.
She’d handled it on her own.
“I guess what I don’t understand is”—Michael paused, searching for the right words—“after all those years of keeping it to yourself, why did you do it for her?”
Michael’s guitar leaned against his dresser. He’d tried to teach me chords for years, but I only ever managed to remember three. I picked it up and played each one twice before slapping my hand down on the strings to silence the sound.
“The morning I met her, I was hungover. Remember?”
He nodded, curious, but willing to wait for my answer.
“My emotions were wide open, and … she climbed right in.” I touched my hand to my heart, expecting an ache that didn’t come. “She listened.”
Before Em, no one had listened to me in a long time.
“She was completely devastated when she lost you,” I said, remembering just how broken she’d been. “Like a repeat of Mom, after Dad and the lab. You know how terrible it was.”
“I remember.”
Mom was larger than life, but so much of her life had revolved around Dad. I’d watched her close in on herself after the accident, convinced that her love for me was the only thing keeping her breathing.
I discovered that I’d failed her the morning I found her unconscious on her bathroom floor. She’d been that way ever since.
“I knew I could change it for Em. Make it better.” I stopped and stared up at the ceiling for a second. “I didn’t with Mom. I let her carry around all that grief instead of stepping in to take it. I didn’t try until she was already in the coma. There was nothing there. Too late. I didn’t do one thing that made a difference.”
“Em said it hurt you, physically.”
“That didn’t matter.” Emotional pain was layered. Taking it to ease one situation opened the doors to the past, where every emotion leaned against the one beside it. Pull out one, all the others fell. It was hard to know where to cut it off, if you got it all or if pain still remained to destroy, like cancer.
“Did your mom know? Would she have let you take her grief?”
“I would’ve insisted.” And she’d be here now.
“No one knew what Jack was doing. I should have paid attention, done more to help you both,” Michael said.
“You did enough. You took action. That’s why my dad is at my mom’s bedside right now. If anyone can bring her back, he can.”
