Total pages in book: 53
Estimated words: 49669 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 248(@200wpm)___ 199(@250wpm)___ 166(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 49669 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 248(@200wpm)___ 199(@250wpm)___ 166(@300wpm)
“A rabbit?” Gio said in surprise. “Does your family not like traditional pets?” he asked.
I laughed because he was right. My sister, Rory, was the one who’d decided our menagerie should be mostly comprised of things that slithered or hissed or had more than four legs. It had started with Stella, the bearded dragon King himself had given to her years earlier.
“I can’t take credit for Thumper,” I said. “She belongs to Rush. Along with the other four rabbits that are currently mowing the backyard.” I nodded at Pip. “That’s Pip. He’s mine, but I haven’t had him long.”
We both fell silent for a moment as we stroked the furry bodies in our respective laps.
“Gio, I owe you an apology. A lot of them, actually,” I began.
Gio immediately shook his head and dashed at his eyes. He was older than me by only a couple of years but had one of the softest, kindest hearts of anyone I knew. “No you don’t. I wish I could take it back, Christopher. That night. The club. I just wish I could take it back. We shouldn’t have been there. You tried to tell me that—”
“No, I didn’t,” I interrupted. “I wanted to say something, but I couldn’t.”
“You were being a good friend,” Gio murmured.
“Actually, no, I wasn’t. A good friend wouldn’t have let you go into that place. A good friend would have helped you deal with your anger and hurt so you wouldn’t do anything rash. I didn’t say anything because I couldn’t. Not wouldn’t… couldn’t.”
I paused and then dropped my eyes. “In my house, you didn’t make a sound. You didn’t do anything to get noticed. But Uncle Micah was never silent. He couldn’t be because he needed to protect me and Rory. I always thought of myself as a coward, but I think it had more to do with guilt. I never spoke up for the man who raised me. I never stood up for him. I allowed myself to hide in stories where I could be something different. Whether I was Pip in Great Expectations learning important lessons,” I said as I motioned to the kitten in Gio’s lap, “or I was waiting for my hero to come rescue me in some sweeping love story, I chose fantasy over reality because it was easier. I blocked out the things that didn’t fit into my happily ever after story.”
“But something changed after that night,” Gio suggested.
“I’d gotten lucky twice. Uncle Micah saved me the first time, and Rush was there the second time. I had to stop believing in fairy tales because there wasn’t always going to be a hero waiting on the other side of the door to save me.”
Gio shook his head. “It was my fault, Christopher. I know you want to try and take some of the blame off me, but the only reason you needed rescuing that night is because I fucked up.”
“Don’t you see though, Gio, it would have happened no matter what. If anything, I was lucky because there was someone on the other side of that door. I got the wake-up call I needed, but I escaped the worst of the consequences. So if you need to take all the blame for that night, then do it, but my actions and behavior afterwards were all my own. Shutting you out, shutting our family out, that’s on me and me alone.”
“Christopher…” Gio whispered.
I knew he wanted to say more, to keep apologizing somehow, so I set Thumper on the bed and then scooted forward enough so I could wrap my arms around Gio. “I forgive you, Gio. Please, please forgive yourself. I want my Gio back.”
Gio cried softly in my arms for a couple of minutes. When we broke apart, we were each dashing at our own eyes and each other’s.
“My Christopher,” Gio said with a smile.
The acknowledgement that I was back, the real me, was as overwhelming as it was a relief.
Gio wrapped his hands around mine. He looked down at Pip, who’d drifted off to sleep. “It’s bad, isn’t it?” he whispered.
I knew what he was talking about, of course, but I didn’t know how to answer him. I squeezed his fingers as I considered my words. “I stopped living my life long before I got sick,” I said. “Then I met this amazing, kind, strong, sweet, gorgeous, sometimes awkward but always honest man who wants to live his life with me. Not tomorrow, not in five years, not if one thing or another happens. Today. He wants to live his life with me today. He loves me today, now. So no, I don’t see anything as bad. If I get to live my life with him for an hour or a day or a year or fifty, nothing is going to stop me from loving every second of it. Nothing.”