Page 45 of The Cruelest Kind of Hate
“You were a kid, Gage.A kid.You did everything you could to protect him.”
I try to pull my hand away from her, but she doesn’t let me. I don’t care that I was just a kid. I could’ve done so much more to keep him here. When I remember my brother, I don’t look back fondly on the moments we shared together. I don’t celebrate his life. Instead, a forecast of depression and survivor’s guilt threatens to drown me in the same way my brother’s fate befell him.
“That doesn’t mean shit, Cali. You were a kid taking care of your mother, and she’s still here,” I snap.
Cali flinches slightly, as if my words burned her. “That’s different. You were so much younger?—”
My lip curls back from my teeth in a snarl, and the volume of our private conversation seems to carry in the open-ended space. “How is it any different?”
My first mistake was assuming Cali would back down from our altercation. Her irises dip into a darker shade of blue—one more reflective of a deep-water trench than of the ocean’s glistening surface. “I get that you blame yourself, Gage. I get it, I do. But take it from someone who’s punished themselves their whole life—it’s not worth it. That self-destructive cycle will ruin you. You are thelastperson to blame in this situation. You were theonlyperson who truly cared for your brother, and even though he’s not here anymore, you filled his last moments with the love your parents were never willing to give him. You were there for him through it all. Do you know how lucky Trip was to have you as his best friend? He was so fucking lucky, and if he was here today, I bet you he’d say the exact same thing.”
I don’t…nobody’s ever said anything like that to me before. I stare at her with beads of moisture smeared over my lower lashes, with my words stuck between my teeth like grade A chewing gum.
“Please don’t live the rest of your life blaming yourself for something out of your control,” she implores, sounding like a broken record that I’ve played many times before. And finally, the connection of our palms spark with heat, her once-frosted fingertips now leaving thermal prints over my skin.
I want to break down in her arms, want to uncork years of sadness and let it flood out of me until my body’s nothing but a dehydrated husk. But I refrain, still unsure of where our relationship lies.
“When Teague fell out there, it took me back to the helplessness I felt when my brother died. If something happened toTeague and I failed to save him…it would break me,” I explain, welcoming back the quiver in my voice, as well as the emotion no longer silenced by deafening indignation.
I never really understood why I was so drawn to Cali—aside from her being beautiful and terrible for my ego—but I feel like I understand now. The way Cali treats her brother is the way I wish my parents had treated Trip. She cares about the things Teague’s passionate about, she cares about how he’s feeling, she cares about how she can be a better sister. She’s always there for him when he needs her. If my parents had even showed anounceof what Cali practices in her heart, Trip would still be here today.
Both she and Teague fill the hole in my heart that was left by my brother. They’re the first people to have ever made me okay with revisiting Trip’s memory. I hadn’t realized how dark my life had been before they shared their light with me.
She wraps me in a hug that would’ve knocked me on my ass if I wasn’t already sitting down, and she slots her nose into my neck. “Thank you for looking out for Teague,” she whispers. “And thank you for telling me about your brother.”
With the volume of her curls tied up, I settle for stroking her back, clamping my eyes shut, and finally letting a single tear sluice down my cheek.
Thank you for being the girl to heal me.
16
FRIENDS WITH A CAPITAL “FAKE”
CALISTA
It’s been a week since Teague’s accident on the ice, and thankfully, he made a full recovery. He only had a minor concussion that gave him a few bothersome headaches, but that was the extent of the pain. In fact, he’s super pumped over sustaining his first hockey-related injury. Dear God. Hockey’s a violent sport, right? I’m probably going to see so many more injuries in the future.
The whole week, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about what Gage told me. I can’t imagine going through that type of pain. That would be like if I lost Teague…like when I lose my mother. The more I uncover about him, the more he astounds me. He’s so much more than the surface-level jerk I met at the rink.
I feel honored that he trusted me enough to tell me about his brother. And as much as I know that conversation needed to be had between us, I wasn’t ready for the consequences it brought in its wake. We’re closer. So much closer than we’ve ever been, and that terrifies me.
So I do what I always do when I face discomfort: I throwmyself into my work, hoping that all my problems will just disappear so I never have to confront them.
Both Gage and I have been busy this week with our own stuff, so it’s given me some space to try and put a name to what I feel when I’m around him.
Spoiler alert: I haven’t. In fact, I think I’ve made myself more confused.
“Incredible work today, guys,” I praise, finishing off our lesson with a group clap like we always do at the end of class.
After only a few years of teaching, it still amazes me how powerful the human body is. How fluid and nimble our limbs can be, how our muscles strengthen under duress, how dancers are able to balance their entire body weight on the balls of their toes.
As the class disperses amongst animated chatter, one of my students jogs over to me, catching me mid-pack.
“Hey, Cali. Can I, uh, ask you for some help on one of the sequences we went over today?”
I glance up to lock eyes with Aeris, the brightest-eyed and most enthusiastic student I’ve ever had, and a shy smile is fleshed out on her face. She’s really come into herself these past few weeks, growing more confident in her movements even when she doesn’t get the steps completely right. And she’s always willing to learn and improve, which is a gift that a lot of dancers don’t always have.
“Of course.” I rise up from my squat and shepherd her over to an unoccupied square of floor. I’ve already taken off my heels, and I’m too exhausted to put them back on.
