Page 74 of What You Wish For

Duncan saw me looking at Jake and seemed to know what I was thinking. He took a few steps closer to Jake and wrapped him up in a bear hug. “Love ya, buddy,” I heard Duncan say, just as Helen, who had been brushing sand off of Jake this whole time, said to the guys, “I’m calling a moratorium on wrestling.”

Then she turned to the girls. “I think it’s time for hot chocolate.”

The girls cheered and jumped around, but Duncan charged toward them. “Ugh! Hot chocolate is the worst!” He swooped down, scooped them up, and spun around, one in each arm, until centrifugal force pulled their feet out sideways.

I had never—not once, in all the days since he’d come to Kempner—seen him goof around with kids like that. Mostly, he ignored all children. But here he was,playing. Here he was, looking and acting so much like Old Duncan that it made me sad. I felt my smile fade, even as the girls kept squealing and giggling in palpable delight.

After they’d gone, I regretted not getting Jake’s autograph. Maybe I should have gotten all their autographs, for good measure.

I couldn’t stop thinking about them as I walked back up the beach. Thinking how radically different Duncan was in their presence. Was he faking? Or did they open up some part of his psyche that he normally kept bolted shut?

It was so thrilling—and heartbreaking—to see Duncan happy, given how rarely that ever happened. It was like this glimpse into a parallel universe where he was okay. Maybe not exactly as exuberant as he had been all those years ago at Andrews… but close.

Where was that Duncan when we were at school?

When they’d left in search of hot chocolate, I’d wanted to go with them so badly—and they had tried to convince me to go. I don’t know why I said no. Maybe I didn’t want to interrupt their family time together. Maybe their easy camaraderie was intimidating in a way.

But as I walked home, I had to admit: The more glimpses of the old Duncan I got, the more I wanted. I hadn’t gone with them, in part, because I’d wanted to go with them so badly. The version of him on the beach today was so close to the version I’d always found so irresistible—the mischievous, playful version. Seeing it made me long for more of it so intensely, it was physical, like an ache.

I didn’t want to want him. Or long for him. Or yearn.

Since my epilepsy had come back, I’d tried very hard not to want things I couldn’t have.

And I feared now that Duncan fit easily into that category—in part because of how he’d changed, and in part because of how I had.

Deep down I knew that even if the old Duncan resurrected himself tomorrow, I shouldn’t let myself want to be with him. Because I wasn’t the same person now. I was better in so many ways—but I was also worse.

I’d gone a whole semester without having a seizure—without collapsing in the library in front of the kids, or in the cafeteria line, or on the playground at recess. I was passing as a person who was perfectly fine.

But I wasn’t fine. I had this… condition. One I couldn’t hide forever. It wasn’t the worst thing in the world, but over and over in my life, people I cared about had acted as if it were. The more time I spent with Duncan, the more desperately I wanted him—and the more I wanted him to want me back.

And also: the more I feared that he wouldn’t—couldn’t—once he knew the truth about me. Or, more specifically: once he’d seen it.

That was the crux of it, just like I’d feared all along. He was making me want something I couldn’t have. Him.

Better to stay away. Better not to go to a cozy diner and spend a whole afternoon laughing and joking with them in a big semicircular booth with my thigh grazing against Duncan’s. Better not to feed the addiction.

Better to shut it all down, and fast—before it got worse.

thirteen

I didn’t wind up going with Babette to Austin for Christmas.

In fact, I wound up spending Christmas alone. Mostly because just as we were packing up Babette’s SUV, Tina showed up—with Clay. And two suitcases.

Tina parked right behind me as I was loading my bag into the back.

For a minute, I thought maybe Tina had left Kent Buckley.

Tina’s face went sour when she saw me, but Clay dropped his suitcase and hugged me around the waist.

I worked very hard to make my voice pleasant. “Hey, buddy. Are you here for Christmas?”

“Yes,” Tina answered for him, and then she turned to Clay. “Go find Baba and tell her we’re spending the night.”

After he ran off, I turned to Tina, glanced at the suitcases one more time, and said, “Did you leave him?”

Tina frowned. “Leave who?”

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