Brightly (Flicker #2) (65 page)

“Let you help?” Nasser said sharply. With great effort, he gathered his sound leg under him and hauled himself onto the bed. It was hard to think clearly through the pulsing of his phantom leg. As he looked at Jason, he felt heat spreading through him: a sudden, irrational flush of anger. “Like you helped me on Siren?”

His brother shrank back slightly, looking wary. “I had to make a decision,” he said. “I didn’t have a lot of options. What did you expect me to do?”

“It figures.” Nasser’s voice was full of venom. “The first time I need you to handle something important for me, and you let a stranger cut off my leg.”

“To save your life!”

“What life? What kind of life do I have now?” He gestured forcefully toward his stump, as if Jason had somehow failed to see it, but his hand was shaking badly. “
That’s
what I have!”

Jason set his jaw, but his eyes were shiny. “Would you rather be dead?”

“
I don’t know!”
The words came out jagged, scraping the inside of his throat. Nasser was abruptly lightheaded. His heart pounded in his ears. When he spoke again, his voice was weaker. “I don’t know.”

For a moment, Jason was stunned into silence, the color draining from his face. “What?”

“Look at me,” Nasser said hoarsely. He couldn’t make his hands stop shaking. “I’m dead weight. I’m useless. If you had just let me die, you wouldn’t have to—”

“Don’t say that,” Jason snapped. “Don’t ever say that again.”

“You still don’t get it, do you? I’m going to be a burden on you for the rest of our lives!”

“I don’t care!” Jason blazed, throwing up his hands. “I never cared about that! I knew everything would be different. I knew it would be hard. But I told Amelia to go ahead with it
because I wanted to keep you!
Is that so hard to understand?” A muscle in Jason’s jaw trembled. His voice shook, stretching thinner and thinner, until it finally cracked. “Mom’s dead. Dad left us. I couldn’t lose you, too. If you died, I wouldn’t have anyone.”

Belatedly, Nasser realized that Jason was struggling not to cry. That hit a tender spot deep in Nasser’s chest, a place that hadn’t been touched in a long time. All at once, Jason was a little boy again, a frightened boy who had lost everything but his older brother. Nasser felt his anger bleeding out of him until all that was left was shame.

“Come here,” he said, quietly, and despite everything, Jason didn’t hesitate. It had been years since Nasser had done this, but he remembered how. When Jason sat beside him on the bed, Nasser pulled him against his chest.

“I’m sorry,” Jason babbled, pressing his face into Nasser’s shoulder. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t want to. I was so scared. I’ve never been scared like that.”

Nasser closed his eyes. For a second, it was no different than it had been the morning after the fire, when he had been lost and the only thing he could offer Jason was the assurance that he was there. He knew he should say something, but he had no words. In the end, he just gathered Jason a little closer and pressed a kiss to the top of his head.

Jason was shaking as he wrapped his arms around Nasser, too tightly, and that was when Nasser felt himself start to cry. All this time, he had worked so hard to push everything down as far as he could, down where nobody could see it, but it was as if that touch had somehow broken him open and he was spilling out onto the floor.

At first, it was just one sob, more of a gasp, and a sharp stab of pain under his ribs. But it didn’t stop there. He felt another sob rising in his chest, and another, and they were noisy, messy, hiccupping things that seemed to be punching their way out of him, so forcefully that his chest hurt. Trying to suppress them just made it worse.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this;
he
wasn’t supposed to be like this. He couldn’t afford to fall apart any more than he already had—but everything he’d tried not to feel had turned to water running through his fingers. He couldn’t hold it.

He wasn’t sure how they shifted, or when, but he realized he was sobbing against his brother’s shoulder, clutching the back of his shirt.

“It’s okay,” he heard Jason say. He was crying, too—quietly, but Nasser could feel his breath hitching. “You’re okay.”

“I can’t do this,” Nasser whispered, when his lungs opened enough for him to speak. He felt strangely dizzy. “I can’t.”

“You will, though,” Jason said, soft yet resolute. “You will. We’ll figure something out. We always do. Right?”

“Right,” Nasser echoed faintly, because reassurance was the only thing he had left to give, even if it turned out to be false. Everything else had been scraped out of him. “Right.”

He dropped his forehead onto Jason’s shoulder; Jason settled his chin in the crook of Nasser’s neck, grounding him. When Nasser leaned more heavily against his brother, Jason didn’t budge. He just stayed steady.

When Nasser emerged from his bedroom in the morning, the first thing he noticed was the smell of food. Jason was sitting at the little kitchen table, eating. He’d made eggs and toast, which accounted for about half of his cooking repertoire. He pushed a plate toward Nasser.

“Are we okay?” Jason asked tentatively, as Nasser sat down. “Or do we have to avoid eye contact and aggressively forget that anyone experienced any emotions?”

Jason probably meant for Nasser to laugh at that, but he couldn’t manage it. All he said was, “I’m sorry about last night. I was out of my head.”

“In your defense, I’m pretty sure I started crying first.”

“That’s not what I meant. I’ve been treating you like crap for weeks.”

“Oh.” Jason paused. “You don’t have to apologize. I know it’s been—”

“Don’t make excuses for me,” Nasser said. “I’m an ass. I’ve been angry about a lot of things, and it’s been easier to act like everything’s your fault than just to accept it. I needed to blame it on something, and I blamed it on you.”

“It
is
my fault, though,” Jason said bleakly. “I gave Amelia the green light.”

“You did the best you could. I was wrong to hold that against you. What I said last night…” Nasser shook his head. “I was upset and I took it out on you. I didn’t mean any of it. I’m really sorry, Jason. For everything.”

Jason fixed his gaze on the table, hiding his eyes. He looked like a rope bearing too much weight. Really, he’d looked that way for weeks. Nasser had just been too blind to recognize it before now. “I really hate seeing you like this.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“Stop saying that.”

“What do you want me to say?”

“Nothing. I’m not upset, you know,” Jason said, glancing up. “I’m just tired.”

“I know,” Nasser said again, even quieter. “Whatever you need me to do—”

“Get better,” Jason said gently. He sighed. “That’s the only thing I want you to do. I don’t care how long it takes. Start figuring out whatever it is you need to do to start getting better, and tell me if I can help you with it. You don’t have to do everything alone.”

For a long moment, Nasser didn’t speak. Then he took a slow breath, steeling himself.

“I lost my leg,” Nasser said, with finality. He didn’t miss the way Jason’s shoulders twitched, the way he dropped his head a little lower, like the words stung him, too. “I lost my leg, and I’m going to deal with that. I’m going to be better about all of this. You don’t have to worry about me. I’ll be fine. Okay?”

“Okay.” Jason smiled, but it was small and papery.

Nasser couldn’t blame him for being uncertain, not when he hardly believed himself. He wanted so badly just to snap out of it, to force himself to stop feeling this way, but the grief and the frustration and the fear were bigger than he was. He felt small and helpless inside it.

After a while, Jason said, “You know that means you’ll have to leave the apartment at some point, right?”

“Right,” Nasser said, though thinking about it made his insides squirm.

“You’ll probably have a hard time getting around on those crutches.”

“I know.” He’d known for a long time. The crutches were unwieldy and cumbersome. He’d managed to fall while using them in the apartment. He didn’t want to imagine how he would fare on a crowded sidewalk. “I still don’t want to use a wheelchair.”

“I don’t know why you’re so set against it.”

“Forgive me for not wanting to be a doorstop,” Nasser muttered.

Jason sighed. “You wouldn’t have to use it all the time. I just think it’d be good for you have as an option, in case you don’t feel like dealing with crutches. And speaking of,” he added, “we should get you some forearm crutches.”

“Forearm crutches?” Nasser echoed, wondering why he hadn’t thought of that.

“Mm-hmm. They’re supposed to be better for long-term use than the other kind—lighter, less awkward. And they won’t screw up the nerve endings under your arms.”

“Where’d you hear that?”

Shrugging, Jason glanced down and mumbled, “I bought a book.”

Nasser laughed, more out of surprise than anything else. It had been so long since he’d laughed at anything. He thought he’d forgotten how.

“What?” Jason asked, looking suddenly unsure.

“Nothing,” Nasser said. “You’re a really good brother, Jason.”

Jason said nothing to that, but he looked pleased. “I haven’t seen Lee in a while,” he mused, a moment later. “When’s she been coming around?”

Nasser paused. “She hasn’t.”

“At all?”

“No.” Nasser would’ve preferred to leave it at that, but he knew Jason would ask. He looked down and added, “We broke up, so…”

Jason choked a little on his eggs. “Are you serious?” he asked, coughing. “When?”

“Three days ago.”

“Oh my God.” Jason’s voice was full of wonder. “That explains so much.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’ve been acting really weird lately. Weirder than usual, I mean. I didn’t want to ask.” He leaned his elbows on the table, frowning. “Why’d you break up with her?”

“I didn’t,” Nasser admitted. “She broke up with me.”

“She
dumped
you?” Jason asked, scandalized. “What the hell happened?”

Nasser shifted uncomfortably. Since she walked out of the apartment, he had dissected their argument a hundred times, struggling to figure out how he had allowed it to spiral so far out of control and why he had been too stubborn to ask her to stay. “We had a fight,” he said at last. “That’s the long and short of it.”

Jason had the grace not to press it. He just shook his head in disbelief. “Jeezus. I didn’t think she’d…”

“Dump a guy with one leg?” Nasser supplied, trying for a light tone.

He’d thought Jason would smile at that, but his brother just flushed scarlet. “No,” he said quickly. “I just—I thought you guys were really
solid
, you know?”

They used to be, Nasser thought, before Siren. He used to be a lot of things before Siren.

“Like, you gave your true name to get her out of that revel,” Jason went on blithely, “and then there was all that crap with Byrony, and then Otherworld, and…” He trailed off, looking uncertain. “I’m not being very emotionally intuitive right now, am I?”

“Not really.”

“Sorry. I’m just… surprised.”

“That makes two of us,” Nasser muttered.

Jason grimaced. “So were you planning to tell me at some point, or were you just going to hope I forgot Lee exists and that she’s practically lived here for a month?”

Nasser sighed. “I don’t know. I didn’t really feel like getting into it.”

That seemed to mollify Jason for a moment. Then he tilted his head and gave Nasser an appraising look. “Well, shouldn’t you be doing something else right about now?”

“Like what?”

“Getting drunk?” Jason guessed. “Listening to a mix tape? Crying?”

“Is that your standard approach?” Nasser asked, raising his eyebrows.

Shrugging, Jason said, “Not exactly. But I don’t really sweat this stuff. If it’s not working, then it’s not working, and you let it go.”

“I want to make it work, though,” Nasser found himself saying.

“Have you told
her
that?”

“No,” Nasser said, feeling foolish. “But she broke up with
me
, remember? She’s already said everything she needed to say.”

Jason paused, looking like he wanted to add something, but he seemed to think better of it. “Well,” he concluded at last, “we can still get drunk, if you want. No time like the present.”

“It’s nine in the morning.”

Jason waved his hand dismissively. “Details.”

“Also, you’re sixteen.”

“That’s a petty human concern,” Jason scoffed.

“And I’m a petty human,” Nasser said, though he felt himself starting to smile. “So I guess that settles that.”

Lee had never been in the back room of Sandpiper before today. Conall and Tipper left town three days ago, without fanfare, leaving only Alice and a set of keys. For the time being, the place was hers.