Page 70 of Between the Lines

I haven’t had to face the demons that I’mnotgood enough to take care of him in their absence. That I could fail him. For the first time in years, my walls are crumbling. And this time, I have no one to catch me.

That is partially a lie. And because I’ve called myself out, myfinger has hovered over the button of his name in my contact list for the last several minutes. Naturally, I’m too much of a coward to initiate the call.

I used to call Cal daily to check up on him, then weekly when his class schedule became hectic. Now, we have a standing call at ten-a.m. on the first Sunday of every month to check in. He’s busy. I get it. He’s in his residency program and has tons of friends, a social calendar that keeps him occupied. I, on the other hand, fill my own calendar with tasks until I’m blue in the face so that I can avoid this very notion: my own brother, the last remaining person I have in my life, is worlds away.

In retrospect, all I have to do is press this button. Call him up. Say the words,I’m scared, Cal. And I know he would come running.

I can’t do that. Not to the boy whose childhood was ripped away twice. Not when he’s finally just getting on track with the life he deserves. I can’t take it away from him again.

But I have to talk tosomeone. If I sit here in silence, my longtime friend will eat away at me until I’m nothing left but a hollow shell. I can’t drown in the what-ifs.

Where silence was oftentimes my only friend, mortality was what I hid from. It was the cloud that covered our perfect family for so many years, I wondered if we’d ever be out of the storm. Of course, with the rainbow of Cal’s remission, my parents were taken from us, too. Mortality has always been the fifth member of the Harding family. I can’t drag Cal back into its dark clutches.

So in his absence, I think of Claire.

It isn’t so much that I draw her up during an exercise. I don’t close my eyes andpicture the one person I want to be holding my hand. No, she is just simply already there. In the background. It takes her absence to realize how my body has come to depend on her presence, and that fills me with a terror I haven’t known in quite some time.

I cannot depend on Claire. Cannot rely on her to carry the burden of what my life entails. She has light years ahead of her, and Iwill only drag her down. And besides. I’ve messed this all up. Wecan’tbe together.

We see each other in dark parking lots and illicit affairs after hours. I would be risking the very job I took to pay off my debts to continue involving myself with her. Even so, the simplethoughtof thumbing through my contacts until I find her name settles my heart rate—so much so that I pull up the C’s.

There they are. Right next to each other.

Callahan Harding

Claire Benson

Two opposing sides to a chasm where I wait at the bottom for one of them to pull me out.

One already knows the harrowing feats that rescue will take—he’s made them all before, with a smile on his face. The other is completely unprepared, doesn’t even know that I have the power to lead her straight to the bottom with me.

Calling Claire means opening up a side of myself that no one besides myself and Cal know—well, and Dr. Marty, of course. I don’t know if I have it in me to bring someone else along for the ride when I’ve already hurt Cal so much in the process.

So, why then is my subconscious badgering me to make the call?

Claire would know what to say.

Claire would be a great comfort.

Claire would stick by your side.

I swat Freud’s demons away, my face pursing in agitation, which is albeit a welcomed distraction from the fear—fear that hasn’t gripped me in so long that the sneaking sensation of it up my spine is an unexpected ice bath in the middle of the desert.

I’ve founded so many of my principles onnotletting the past control me. Of staying in the present. Maybe I’ve been lying to myself.

Maybe that’s simply because I’m soafraidto let my past define me. Maybe it’s because I long so hard to let mypresentdefine me when in reality, my demons have been puppeteering me since their inception. Maybe it’s time I let my present start to pull me from the darkness of my past.

My gaze wanders to the leather armchair she has occupied twice now. My study, despite the blazing fireplace, seems colder without her sunny presence. They always did say that once a light has been turned on, it’s impossible to focus on anything else. As if my life were devoid of light, now I can’t seem to focus on much else than keeping her in it.

Maybe that’s how we’re different, she and I: Where Claire brings the light, I suck the life straight from the room.

Just do it. Call her.

My thumb hovers between their names. Both hold their own safety.

In a move I’ve only made one other time, I close my eyes and leave things up to fate.

The day I decided to be a donor for Cal, Mom and I made a wish on the stars from my hospital room. It was the only other time I’ve ever pulled all logic and reasoning from my decisions. So I close my eyes, drop my thumb, and only peel them open when I hear the distant sound of the dial tone.

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