Page 257 of Burn Bright

She has a hand against my bare chest. On my hard-pounding heart. “I understand now why you felt like you had to leave.”

I take some deep breaths. “The test was negative?”

“Yeah, and I wasn’t alone. Your brother kept me company.”

I try to relax at the fact. But I’m sure my brothers finding out about a pregnancy scare went overgreat, especially while I was missing. “Which brother?”

“Guess.”

“Beckett,” I say like it’s just known.

“I get why you love him so much,” she murmurs softly.

“He doesn’t intimidate you anymore?”

“Oh no, he’s still intimidating as fuck.”

I laugh, and she smiles a little at my chest. I realize now that my pulse has slowed to a calm beat. She lies more against me, slackening into me, and I hold her closer while she rests her head against the crook of my neck.

I kiss her blonde hair as she fiddles with the beaded bracelets and the elastic Capybara one on my wrist. We both catch movement out the window, and we see my brothers walking toward the SUV. Beckett grabs the duffel I dropped.

“Charlie and Beckett,” she says, looking up at me with glassy blue eyes. “I owe them everything.”

Emotion barrels into me. I fight more tears. “Me too.”

Me too.

58

BEN COBALT

Ovid once wrote, “Happy is the man who has broken the chains which hurt the mind, and has given up worrying once and for all.”

Then again, this is supposedly from Ovid’s poem “Remedia Amoris,” which of course is in Latin, and according to my father, the better translation is, “He’s his own best liberator who snaps the chains that hurt his heart, and ends the grief forever.”

The first speaks about anxiety, the second speaks about lovesickness, and ironically, both speak to me. I’ve been doing more reading lately. Not necessarily at the recommendation of my new therapist. I’ve only met with Dr. Frederick Cothrell once, but I’ve only been back in New York for a week.

I hadn’t forgotten that we’d met before. He sometimes attends Cobalt Inc. events, galas, fundraisers. Still, this time felt different as I entered his office. I swept his features. Early sixties. Salt and peppered hair. Amiable, warm smile like he knew me since I was a child. Deeply knew me.

I suppose he did from all the years my dad talked about me. It could’ve felt unsettling, but it was the exact opposite. It felt like I was walking on a cloud. Like nothing sharp or pokingor painful was around me. Like maybe I could speak without panicking.

Maybe this will work.

He asked if I planned to finish the fall semester. He didn’t say I shouldn’t. Didn’t suggest I drop out of college or return. These are paths I need to decide on my own. Of course I’m afraid of choosing the wrong thing, of making a mistake and hurting others around me, but I can’t push everyone away as a solution anymore. Or avoid the things that I think will cause harm.

Like driving.The thought of being behind a wheel with my foot on the gas freaks me the fuck out, but I know I’ll need to try at some point. Avoidance isn’t a long-term fix, and it’s obviously made my life worse.

I’m working on it.

I went back for finals week. So I could pass the semester and stay on course to graduate at the same time as Harriet. I know I at least want that.

Seeing Xander again in class, the guilt was an avalanche burying me. He’d done exactly what I did when we were thirteen. He told no one about how I was hurting and realized too late that maybe he should’ve, and I put him in that position.

I’d prepared for another Ice Age between us. I’d kicked up the snow. Winter was coming, to quote his love ofGame of Thrones.We took our usual seats in the back row. Harriet between us, and we had our sheets of paper ready as Professor Wellington manned the podium for the final oral exam.

Before our professor said a word, Xander quietly stood up with his pen and paper, and he changed seats. He sat in the empty one right beside me.

It took sheer strength of will to not break down crying. I had to cover my face with my hand as I sat between Xander and Harriet. He rested a palm on my shoulder.