Page 128 of Collision

Jamiewringshishandsas he sits at my kitchen table, the chamomile tea between us cold, both mugs full. I left work just five minutes after I’d arrived. I walked out. Jamie followed. And now we’re here and, for the first time in a long time, we’re being honest.

As clouds outside blanket the sky, and the brisk air turns dark and heavy, we are talking.

“I don’t get it, Mik. You hate each other. You always have.” His voice is pained and exhausted, and I feel it too.

“I think that, maybe, I never really hated him.” My admission comes with agony. “It was just easier to pretend I did than it was to face what was really going on in my mind.”

“And what is really going on?” He looks up to me with those open, honest eyes and I sigh. I should never have lied to him.

He should never have lied to me.

“Ben was unexpected and terrifying. He’s always scared me because I think I’ve always known that he is soft and kind and safe. He saw all my broken edges for what they were, Jamie; he saw them as pieces of me. Just as you are a piece of me, and Mom, even Dad. He saw them and he accepted them.” My tears start to swim as my lungs heave and I feel like I’m drowning. “He never wanted to fix me, Jamie. He just wanted me. And I could never hate him.”

“And you what? You want to be with him?”

I take a deep breath and raise my shoulders as I wrap my blanket tighter around myself.

“I do.” I admit. “I want him so much that it scares me. I want his smiles and hisreallystupid jokes and the way he can stop me from spiralling before I even know I’m doing it. I want him. But I want my brother more.”

“Mik, I -”

“I chose wrong once.” My voice cracks and I reach for Jamie’s hand. “I won’t choose someone over you again.”

When Jamie’s phone rings he closes his eyes and rests his head on our hands. “I don’t know what to say to fix this, Mik. I don’t like it, but I don’t want you to be unhappy.”

I take a deep breath before pulling away and clearing up our mugs.

Is that what I’m choosing?Unhappiness?

“Just answer your phone and we’ll put this all behind us.”

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