Page 86 of Sol
I excused myself and darted after her. Once I caught up with her, I wrapped my arms around her shoulders, but she shrugged themoff.
“Are you okay?” I asked, jogging to keep up withher.
“I’m fine.” She tugged at her tank top and adjusted the waistband of her yogapants.
“Babe. You aren’t fine. What is it? Whathappened?”
Wiping her eyes with the back of her hands, she didn’t answer my question. Instead, she took off running toward our room, so I had no choice but to chase her. When we got there, she opened the door, allowed me to step in, but slammed it quickly behindme.
“Danika. What’swrong?”
She flung herself on the bed and wailed into the mattress. “I can’t do this!” I sat on the edge of the bed and touched the small of herback.
“Can’t do what?Yoga?”
“No!” She flopped over, her eyes full of tears, and sat up, wrapping her hands around herself. “You don’tunderstand!”
“What don’t I understand? What’s going on? What did that exercise dredge up for you? It’s okay to talk to me. I’m not goinganywh—”
“I can’t handle this.” She made a sweeping arm gesture around the room. “I can’t live with this pain. It hurts too much. I can’tbreathe.”
“Dani. It’sokay—”
I knelt on the bed to hold her, but she stood up and thrust out her chest, her elbows away from her body. Then she pointed at her heart. “I was the one who yelled athim.”
“Yelled atwho?”
“My brother,” she whispered. “The last memory I have of him is me screaming athim.”
I stroked her forearm lightly. “I don’t think you should be so hard on yourself. He never mentioned it. And I know he emailed youafter.”
She shook her head vigorously. “No. I should have done something. Done anything to stop him from going. I was right, and I was sowrong.”
“Babe. What are you talkingabout?”
“He’s gone. He’sgone.”
“Iknow—”
“And you have no idea what I’ve lost,” she hissed, jabbing a finger in my chest. “I’ve lost any connection to a family. I’ve lost the hope for a future with an uncle who could play with my kids. I can’t meet his future wife. I can’t congratulate him on a new job. I can’t bring him a wind chime for his new house. I can’t play UNO with him anymore, even with his stupid house rules. You know he always let me win? I wanted to do that until we wereeighty.”
“Danika, I know. He was my friend, too.” But she kept going, the words coming out of her like they’d been pent up foryears.
“No more walking in the redwood forest with him, picking flowers and crossing streams. No more pizza and dumb pictures in a photo booth. No more teasing him about his haircut or eating Cocoa Puffs for breakfast. No more Degan,” she sobbed. “Why bother? Why bother living when someone so precious was taken away so senselessly. Sostupidly.”
“I know, babe. Iknow.”
Tears streamed down my face, and I didn’t care that she saw. Men cry. I wanted to gather her in my arms, but she seemed to needspace.
She rasped out in a halting tone, “What if he died not knowing how much I love him? I was the one who had yelled at him. I was the one who pushed him away. I’m the guiltyone.”
“There’s no guilt for saying what youbelieve—”
“You came back the hero from Afghanistan, but my brother didn’t,” she whispered. “And whenever I see you, I think of him. That makes me want to stay with you—but also stay far away. He’s always going to be betweenus.”
So that wasit.
“I know, babe. I know. It’s eating me alive that he threw himself in front of that bomb and saved me. It should have been me, not him. I could have saved him. I should have donesomething.”
