Page 67 of Glad You Exist

Dan shakes his head vigorously; he once again puts a hand up to cut me off.

“No. It’s not your fault. I’ve let my fear of losing you lead me to controlling you. I let you lock yourself in your room because it made me feel better knowing there was less of a chance of anyone or anything hurting you again that way. And it wasn’t just me. Mom let you do it. Dad let you do it. We all failed you by letting you hide from life when what we should have done was encourage you to live it.”

My breath catches in my throat.

“Like you are now.”

Tears pool at the corners of my eyes. My brother is echoing our mom’s words.

The same words that have carried me through the last grief-stricken months, knowing I’m finally doing what Mom wanted.

“Did Brad tell you all that?”

“Not in so many words because why would he? It is painstakingly clear that you still have not told them about…” He trails off. Not once in the last few years has he been able to put into words what happened to me. What I did. But I think, just like everything else, it’s time for us to face it head-on and not mince words about it or skate around the subject.

I did what I did. I broke and my brother saved me.

“My suicide attempt?”

Dan shuts his eyes, sucking in a breath at my choice of words.

I choose to push past it for now. I’m not ready to dissect all the reasons why I still haven’t told my friends. I don’t want to hash it out right now and add it to the many reasons my head currently feels like it’s about to explode.

“So, whatdidBrad say?”

Dan frowns in a way that tells me this isn’t the last time we will talk about this.

“That I need to loosen the reigns completely and trust that you know what you’re doing.”

I raise an eyebrow, sensing there’s more to it than that, “And?”

He smirks warning me that I may or may not like what he says next.

“He has every intention of taking over from now on.”

“I hate to ask, but what exactly does that mean?”

Dan chortles, prompting me to smack his arm. “Just that our boy finally manned up. It took seeing another guy manhandle you to finally get over his fear of you rejecting him.”

I straighten up, letting the blanket fall off my shoulders.

I stare at my brother. Shellshocked.

“Wait…did you know? Dideveryoneknow?”

Guffaw. That’s the only way to explain the sound that is currently coming out of my brother’s mouth. I smack him repeatedly with a pillow until he holds his hands up in surrender, calming himself down enough to continue.

“I don’t know if everyone did but yeah, it’s so obvious that if you weren’t my sister, I would seriously ask you to get your eyes checked.”

He makes a show of shaking his head at me. He’s all seriousness now.

“Devotion. I used to think the word was overrated, like who does that, but then lately seeing Brad practically worship the ground you walk on? Come on Liz. How did you not know?”

“But…I….” I realize I’m sputtering again but he’s right. I don’t understand why I didn’t notice it before. But now that everyone has so nicely pointed it out, it all makes sense.

Everything becomes so glaringly obvious.

My mind starts playing specific memories like a montage.

---