Page 94 of Restitution

He’s just a shell of breaking emotions, and I have no idea what this means. Is he a ticking time bomb? Is he going to lose himself? Will he explode at the wrong time? Will he get through this?

Kade’s hair is soaked, falling over his forehead as he licks a droplet from his lips, his nostrils flaring.

Rage. It’s growing inside him like a blazing inferno.

We all stand in silence as the song fills the quietness, the lyrics very fitting considering we’re at the top of a hill and the view of the trees below is beautiful.

He’ll be here, standing with us, probably bobbing his head to the song while we all muffle our cries and blow our noses. He won’t want us to be sad and miserable – he’ll want us to live our lives and be happy.

I glance over my shoulder, and my teary gaze lands on a heartbroken Giana. Her bottom lip quivers, and she doesn’t appear to have slept a wink in days given the black rings under her eyes. She’s shakily holding a rose in her hand, the thorn cutting into her skin as she fights to fill her lungs.

She hasn’t reached out to anyone – no one has reached out to her either. They were hoping to work on things. He was getting better for her, and now he’s gone.

As the song ends, Kade comes back over to stand beside me while Ewan struggles to speak. He tries to thank everyone for coming, tosay that every single one of us meant a lot to Jason and he’ll stay alive in our hearts, but his voice keeps breaking, and he eventually needs his wife to comfort him and lead him back to the crowd.

Luciella moves to stand beside the coffin, and I hold my breath. My best friend hasn’t been the same since leaving the lodge. She cries all the time, and she eats even less than Kade.

I’ve tried to keep her in the studio room with me – we exercise, dance, stretch, lie on the crash mats and I listen to all of her stories about Jason growing up.

She clears her throat and unfolds a piece of paper, then takes a deep breath.

“On your twelfth birthday, I…” She pauses. “I took my first steps and walked straight into your arms. When I turned four, I started my first day of school and you were the only one wh-who managed to calm me down when I cried. M-m-my first school disco—”

She nearly drops the piece of paper. Kade is stiff as a board beside me, emotionless, but I can see in his eyes that he’s battling how he feels. He’s witnessing his twin sister falling apart in front of everyone.

Base isn’t even here to comfort her. He’s in Russia, battling with his family to cancel the arranged marriage he agreed to and get back to the girl he loves.

I offer Kade my hand again, and I hold my breath until he grips it like a vice, his throat bobbing.

Lu wipes her eyes. “Sorry.” She blows out a breath. “No one would be my date at the school dance, so you danced with me in the playground.” Her throat cracks. “You danced with me until the music from the hall stopped. For prom, I didn’t like my shoes but didn’t want to tell Mum, so you used your first wage to buy mea new pair. I was afraid of the dark, so you and Kade slept on my room floor whenever I had nightmares.”

Kade’s fingers tighten around mine, and I glance up to see a lone tear sliding down his cheek, the muscle in his jaw ticking with each blink. I stroke my thumb against his hand and rest my head on his shoulder.

Luciella’s shakes worsen, but she keeps going. “You moved out, and I felt like a piece of my soul was missing. You were going to walk me down the aisle. Hold my first child. Watch me grow up.”

She stops and presses her hand to her mouth, and Aria nods her head, smiling warmly. “You’re doing well, sweetheart.”

“You… you were –are– the perfect big brother for me and Kade. The best. Caring, supportive, funny and exactly the kind of sibling everyone deserves. I love you, Jason. I-I miss you.”

Kade lets go of my hand. “Fuck this,” he spits through gritted teeth and shoulders his way through the crowd.

I don’t hesitate to go after him. Neither do five of his guards. But before we catch up with him, he staggers to the side, drops to the grass and starts seizing again.

“Psychogenic non-epileptic seizures,” the doctor says, reading from his clipboard. “From your EEG during your third episode, there weren’t any spikes in electrical activity to indicate epilepsy, so we can likely rule that out, though not completely. PNESs are not uncommon for someone who sustained as much trauma as yourself, Mr Mitchell. Your father suffered from pseudo-seizures too.”

Aria sits down beside Kade. “They only stopped about tenyears ago,” she says. “He had triggers that brought them on. Anything from a word to a feeling to a smell set him off. That’s why he wasn’t allowed to drive when he was younger. He crashed while blacked out and nearly killed someone.”

Kade’s jaw ticks as he stares at his bouncing knee, legs parted wide as he slouches on the sofa beside me. I don’t think he’s even listening.

As soon as Aria got him to her colleague’s office, he was sent for testing, and they happened to have caught a third seizure that got him a solid diagnosis. The doctor had said he was lucky, because it can take years for someone to catch this type of seizure on an EEG.

“Pseudo?” I ask, tilting my head.

“Pseudo-seizures,” the doctor clarifies. “They mimic epileptic seizures, but they’re brought on by stress, anxiety and other mental factors.”

“How did Tobias stop them?” I ask, badly wanting to take Kade’s hand but not knowing how he’ll react. I already feel like I’m overstepping by just being here, but he forced me to sit with him.

The doctor looks at Aria, and she gives me a warm smile. “Time. And a lot of help from the institution. He said he could always feel them coming on, and he had no idea how to stop them. Not that they can be stopped. Just… with time, they started to come on less frequently until they were weeks apart, months apart, and then years.”