Total pages in book: 106
Estimated words: 99949 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 500(@200wpm)___ 400(@250wpm)___ 333(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 99949 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 500(@200wpm)___ 400(@250wpm)___ 333(@300wpm)
When I’d managed to calm down enough to speak, I admitted one of the multiple ugly truths that I’d buried so deep I’d vowed it would never see the light of day. “I’m so fucking angry, Theo. So fucking angry. At my parents, at myself, at all those doctors who missed the signs, at the ones who didn’t buck the rules and tell my brother the truth about his condition rather than letting my family feed his hope with lies, at all those nurses and therapists who treated him like a paycheck and nothing more. And… and…”
When I couldn’t admit my deepest shame, Theo did it for me. “You’re mad at him too,” he said softly.
“I loved him so much, but all those years he glossed over what was happening to him…”
“To protect you,” he said.
“That wasn’t the way it was supposed to be. I was supposed to look out for him. I should have been able to see in his eyes that something was wrong. I could have left the army sooner. I could have made sure he got the best care.”
Theo shifted back so he could look me in the eye. “Did Rabbit ever try to take his own life after he found out there was no cure for his condition?”
“What?” I automatically asked even though I’d heard the question. I just hadn’t been expecting it. I shook my head. “I don’t think so.”
“Don’t you see, Lincoln? He was waiting for you. He knew you would be the one to protect him. He knew you would be the one who took care of him and gave him what he needed… what he really needed. And he waited because he needed you to do exactly what you did. Hold him in your arms and tell him he didn’t need to be strong anymore. That you were there to be that for him.”
I sat there in silence for a long time as I absorbed Theo’s words. I’d never even considered the fact that Rabbit had been waiting for me. And what if I had come home sooner and seen him when he’d still looked like himself? Would I have accepted his decision? Would I have understood how much pain he was truly in and that he had the right to choose how and when he left this world? Or would I have done what my father and stepmother had done? Lived in denial and gone in search of a cure that didn’t exist? Ignored the advice of the experts who’d known more about Rabbit’s condition than anyone else? Lied to him and told him he’d get better just to buy myself some time to come to terms with how I’d ever be able to live without him?
All the what-ifs began to hit me at once and I found myself off-balance. It was Theo who helped me lie down on the soft bed of leaves behind me. Then he was at my side, his arms wrapped around me.
Even as the questions continued to swirl around in my head, I could feel my eyes growing heavy and before I knew it, blissful sleep took over. Before everything went dark, I wondered if those questions would all still be there when I woke up. Would I have any answers to them by then? And if by some miracle I did, would any one of them mean the difference between those claws of despair continuing to tear me in two or maybe, just maybe, would I finally feel even just a little bit whole again?
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
THEO
Even in his sleep, Lincoln’s arms kept me snugly pressed against his chest. I should have been eager to escape his hold but the sound of his heartbeat beneath my ear and the ambient sounds of the forest as every bird, every animal, every trickle of water went on as if it were any other day somehow brought me comfort as I tried to process everything Lincoln had told me.
I didn’t have any siblings, so I didn’t know what it was like to have that kind of bond with another person. My parents hadn’t been unkind to me when I’d been a child, but we’d never been the kind of family who said I love you or talked about our feelings. My father never hit me, my mother never yelled at me. No, they’d been too pious for that. I couldn’t help but wonder how they would have behaved if fate had chosen to strike me down with some horrible disease or condition like poor Rabbit. I suspected that they would have looked to God to provide the answer. After all, wasn’t that exactly what they’d done when they’d learned their son was slated for a life of eternal damnation?
There would have been no one to wait for to come save me, to set me free.