Four days. Four days of doctors, shrinks, teachers, social workers and visitors, each worse than the one before.

Kathlene grilled me about my decision to go home, searching for my true motivation, not trusting that my simple rationale was the whole reason. Given my history of deception and half-truths, I didn’t blame her for being concerned. She insisted on staying in the room when my parents first came to visit me, and she wouldn’t be dissuaded. Again, I couldn’t fault her. My parents and I had a rocky history, to say the least, which I’d made worse by clinging to a pipe dream.

Kathlene was sitting in the chair next to my bed reading her book while I drifted in and out of consciousness watching some inane cartoon on the television. I was out of it when Mom and Dad came in, but their quiet voices brought me to consciousness as they spoke with Kathlene. The animosity between my mother and my foster mom showed plainly in their tones and expressions. My father stepped between them and spoke loudly enough for me to understand him.

"That’s enough. He’s alive, he’s recovering, and if you two would stop bickering long enough to pay attention, you’d see he’s listening. He doesn’t need to hear you two arguing."

The women’s heads turned to see me observing their exchange. Their cheeks flushed a bit and they glared at one another for a moment longer before my parents approached my bed. Mom looked like she was about ready to spit and cry at the same time. She cast another malicious glance at Kathlene, and I had to say something.

"Don’t blame her, Mom," I said with more strength than I thought I possessed. "She couldn’t do anything to stop what happened. It was all my fault. If you want to be mad at someone, be mad at me. I started this, and I ended it too. It’s over."

I raised the head of my bed so I could see them without straining.

"She was supposed to look after you…" Mom started, but I interrupted her.

"And she did. She’s still looking after me. She’s been sitting right next to me for the last couple of days."

Another round of glares passed between my real mom and my foster mom.

"Listen to me," I said sharply, my voice strong.

I pinned my mother with my gaze, putting as much power and meaning into it as I could. She was startled by the intensity and it showed.

"Kathlene didn’t do anything wrong. She could not have stopped me. No one could have stopped me. If you think you could have stopped me, forget it. I probably would have died instead, because Chris wouldn’t have been around to find me. So let it go."

"Brian, I can’t…"

"Mom, if you really want to blame someone, blame yourself!"

I didn’t need to see the stricken expression on my mother’s face to know it was a mistake to say what I did.

"No, that’s wrong. Like I said, if you need to blame someone, blame me. I’ve fucked up my life and all of yours, too."

"Brian Andrew…" Kathlene started to chastise me for my language.

"Kathlene, back off. I’m talking."

A gasp from my mother seemed a prelude to the stinging rebuke I had steeled myself for, but it didn’t materialize. Kathlene seemed more curious and amused than offended.

"All I want right now is for all of this to go away. If you can’t get along with each other, then at least don’t fight about it in front of me.

"I can’t change anything that happened. I’m not the same person I was, and none of you are either. All we can do is go on. I’ve made the decision that it’s time for me to go back home. It’s not going to be easy for me, or for you, either, Mom and Dad. I’m not the little boy that you knew. It’s going to take a lot of adjustment.

"Kathlene, I owe you so much. You did save me. I just wish it hadn’t come to that. I love you, and Chris, too."

A huge yawn escaped me. The short conversation had taken more out of me than I thought.

"I’m tired. I want to go back to sleep."

I lowered my bed and turned away from them. They left the room and stood outside, still exchanging heated words. Again my eyes filled with tears, and once again I suppressed them. I wasn’t sad. I was angry, and not at them. The only person left to blame for the situation was myself, and I deserved whatever was coming my way. The thought filled me with a strange sense of peace, because what was in store for me didn’t matter in the slightest. Nothing mattered anymore.

"Brian, wake up. I need to speak with you."

The insistent voice penetrated into my subconscious, rousing me out of a deep dreamless sleep. When I opened my eyes, I saw Mrs. Brown hovering over me with Dr. Rasek behind her.

"I’m awake. What do you want?" I asked in an aggravated tone.

"How are you feeling?" She asked.

"You woke me up for that?" I retorted with irritation.

"Yes, that and other things," Mrs. Brown stated ignoring my attitude.

"Like what?" I asked with some trepidation.

"How do you feel, Brian?" She repeated.

"I feel okay," I responded. "Still achy and tired."

"Do you feel like going home?"

Her eyes were intense. She was looking for something in my answer.

"Feel like it? I don’t know, but that’s where I need to go. It’s where I belong."

Her expression softened with my answer. I raised the head of the bed slightly so I could see her and waited for her next question. Rasek took over while the woman sat in a chair next to the bed.

"Why did you try to kill yourself?" He asked quietly.

"I didn’t. I mean, I wasn’t trying to," I clarified. "All I wanted to do was keep my weight down."

"Surely you realize you’re growing. What made you think you needed to keep your weight down?" Mrs. Brown asked.

"I wrestle, and I wanted to keep my weight close to my bracket. I didn’t realize what was happening."

She smiled wryly. "I can’t believe that. You’re intelligent. You look at yourself in the mirror just about every morning. I’m certain you’ve seen other signs of puberty."

I blushed slightly. "Yeah, but I didn’t put it all together. I was focused on my weight and I was depressed. I didn’t think it would go this far."

"But it did and here you are, in the hospital, days from dying." She observed. "What am I supposed to do about it? How can the state know this won’t happen again?"

"Because it happened this time," I answered simply.

"Forgive me, but I fail to see how your near suicide will prevent this from reoccurring."

"Everyone, including me, knows what to look for," I said. "Mom, Dad, Kathlene, Chris, they’ll all watch me like a hawk. It could never happen again, because if any of them suspects anything, they’ll take me to a doctor. I’m not stupid and neither are they."

"How much of this was driven by your depression?" the social worker asked.

"Well, I guess you could say all of it. I wouldn’t have been in that situation if I hadn’t been depressed."

Dr. Rasek asked, "How long have you been depressed, Brian?"

I considered his question for a long moment and then answered, "I guess since I started school."

"Since last fall?"

"No, since I started Kindergarten." I replied.

The man blinked. "Why?"

"Lots of reasons." I said, a sinking feeling growing in my gut. This was stuff I didn’t want to think about.

He pressed on. "Such as…."

"What do you want to know? I’ve always been small for my age… and that made me a perfect target for other kids. I’m smart, which made me even more of a target. I used to be really emotional which was like blood in the water. You want me to go on?"

"Please," Dr. Rasek requested.

"I’ve always related better to my teachers than kids my own age," I continued. "Most of what kids my age do seems kind of childish to me."

"Like what?" He asked.

"Like the adolescent bullshit horsing around, the partying, the drugs and drinking. The name-calling and the picking on other kids just because they aren’t part of the in-crowd. The stupid sexual harassment. Everything about me made me the odd man out. I was an easy and obvious target, and I couldn’t do anything about it."

"Did you go to your parents or the school?" Rasek asked.

I snorted. "What were they going to do? Tell the kids to stop picking on me? Tell them to leave me alone? Take me out of school?"

"They could have punished those responsible," he stated.

"You’d have to suspend half the boys and about a quarter of the girls if you wanted to do that, and it just would have made things worse, anyway. The school can’t protect me after classes let out."

Rasek didn’t seem surprised at my statement, but he asked, "The harassment is that wide spread?"

My eyes narrowed. "Why are you playing stupid? You know the answer to that, and if you don’t, you should have your license pulled."

I saw Mrs. Brown stifle a laugh with a cough as Rasek fought off a grin. He continued when he was certain he had regained control.

"What about your parents?" He asked.

"They don’t care," I said without inflection.

"How do you know that?" Rasek asked.

"Because if they did care, they would have noticed."

"Noticed what, Brian?" Mrs. Brown asked.

"That something wasn’t right."

"Like what, Brian? What wasn’t right?" Rasek asked quietly.

"Nothing. It’s not a big deal," I stated stubbornly.

"It’s a big deal if it put you into a deep depression, Brian," Rasek insisted.

I refused to answer again, staring at Mrs. Brown. I was afraid that if I said anything it would keep me from going home to live with my parents. It was the right thing to do in spite of everything I’d said.

"Brian, if it will help," she said, "I’ve already decided that you’ll be going back to live with your parents. That’s always the first and most preferred option, and I see no reason to remove you at this time."

"So?"

"So, nothing you say here right now is going to change that unless you tell me that your parents abused you. Did they?" Mrs. Brown asked in a deceptively calm voice.

"No!"

"Okay then," she said, "you can answer the doctor’s questions. What wasn’t right?"

I was still wary of answering anything in detail, so I gave a vague answer.

"The depression."

"How did the depression affect you, Brian?" Rasek asked.

"Before I left to live with the Forns? I spent all my time alone in my room. I read a lot."

"What about friends?" asked the shrink.

"What friends?" I asked rhetorically. "I spent some time with Pete before he left. I used to hang out with a couple guys in the neighborhood… but I never really had a friend ‘til Pete. And then Chris."

I let my gaze drift as I fell silent for a moment, losing myself in memories. When I realized I was starting to dwell on Pete’s absence from my life again, I brutally shook myself loose of the thoughts, burying them deep in the abyss my soul had once occupied. There was no room for him anymore. I had to move on.

"Who are you, Brian?" Rasek asked curiously.

My head whipped around. "What did you say?"

"I asked, ‘Who are you, Brian?’," the psychiatrist repeated, noting my reaction to the phrase.

It took me a moment to regain my composure. The phrase that had haunted my dreams startled me, almost throwing me into a panic.

"Brian, why did my question alarm you?" Rasek asked.

When I felt I had recovered enough to control my voice, I replied, "I don’t know. Kind of a sense of déjà vu.

"Who am I? I’m a kid who’s wasted too much of his life. My old life is over. I’m moving on."

I would have had to be blind to miss the worried glance the two adults exchanged.

By the time I was discharged, I was glad to be leaving the hospital, but trepidation filled my heart as I unsteadily walked in the door of my parents’ home with the intention of staying for the first time in two years. My parents gave a restrained welcome, but my sister was effusive with her happiness that her brother was finally home.

Rather than wait in the front room for the big goodbye scene to play out with Kathlene, I went straight to my room and climbed into bed, intent on sleeping the remainder of the day away. My foster mom came in as I was undressing and kissed my forehead before telling me to call her if I needed anything. I thanked her and told her to tell Chris I was sorry. He’d refused to come down for my homecoming. When I’d told Kathlene and him that I was going to live with my parents again, Chris had walked out of the Critical Care Unit and I hadn’t seen him since.

Both Kathlene and my mom had asked me repeatedly if living at home was really what I wanted to do, and I assured them it was. Over two years of stupidity was a lot to make up for. I put on the good face and played like everything was fine. I even managed to fake a couple of smiles here and there; but privately, I knew it was empty. Deep down inside, I knew I was emotionally barren.

After Kathlene left my room and I’d lain down to sleep, I heard more arguing in the front room, and then heard my father once again step in. I sighed and wished Kathlene and my mom would just drop the whole thing. They had never really been friends, but the thought that I had caused them to be at odds in the first place lodged itself firmly in my consciousness and followed me into my slumber, creating the most disturbing dreams I’d had since I woke up in the hospital.

In the days following my return home, and for weeks after that, everyone watched my diet like a hawk. I couldn’t eat much at first even after I left the hospital. Mom and Dad took to watching me take every bite off my plate and then made sure I didn’t throw it up afterwards. It was a huge effort on my part not to purge anyway. That was how I was used to living. In spite of myself, my appetite grew as my strength returned.

My parents had taken me out of school for the remainder of the year so they could keep an eye on me. Dr. Lancaster, the school principal, had accommodated me by allowing me to complete my assignments and take my finals at home. My schoolwork gave me a wonderful excuse to spend my time alone, away from the constant smothering and the emotional drain my parents’ presence inflicted on me. I completed all my assignments but a few math problems every morning and spent the rest of the day cloistered in my room, reflecting on what I’d done to everyone, myself included, in the past two years.

Mom and Dad would both come home from their jobs at lunch. I tried to make sure I was asleep or doing my homework when they were present because I didn’t want to talk to them. When they opened the door to my room and I wasn’t asleep, I’d fake it. If they found me awake, I’d claim I was tired and needed a nap. Dawn would check on me when she got home from school. She would knock quietly and wait for me to answer, which I occasionally did. When she came in she would find a reason to touch me constantly, like she couldn’t believe I was real or actually there. She never picked an argument with me and I tried not to start one either.

I took my finals the week after school officially let out. I had no problems with them as I had expected, but the final exams signaled the end of the excuses for dodging my parents. I began searching for a way to avoid them, and the only thing I could find was running.

The way my mom had been feeding me, I had put on several pounds in the weeks after I returned home. The urge to force myself to vomit came, but I managed to resist most of the time.

It seemed like it took forever to get back to some semblance of normal as far as my body was concerned, but it was really only four or six weeks. I began slowly and then increased my distance and pace a little bit every day. Mom was not happy about my running again, fearing it would somehow lead to a relapse. I tried to explain to her that running was how I dealt with stress. Dad seemed to understand but he deferred to Mom and her unwarranted concerns about my current health.

Sometime toward the end of July I went on a longer run than usual and ended up at La Playa Field. Some kids were playing football so I asked if I could join in. No one objected. That game was a turning point. As far as I was concerned, my recovery became complete on that day.

When I returned home after the game all sweaty and dirty, my mom and dad read me the riot act. I calmly sat through their lectures about taking care of myself and taking it easy because I was still in a weakened condition. When they had wound down, I asked if I could have a snack before dinner. They stared at me like I was insane, but let me go get something to hold me over. It was the first time I’d asked for food or sought it on my own since I’d been home.

From that point forward, I spent most of my time away from the house. Again, my parents were having fits that I wasn’t home recuperating as they thought I should be. The doctors assured them that I was recovering just fine and that a normal routine coupled with good nutritious meals was the best medicine at that point. Even Dr. Rasek told them that the sooner my life got back into a routine the better off I’d be.

In spite of the doctors’ advice, Mom seemed to feel that I was going to drop dead on her. When she was around, she smothered me with attention and that made me want to run away even more. It came to the point where Mom browbeat my dad into the belief that I couldn’t be trusted to stay home on my own and take care of myself like I ought to. The ten weeks since I’d come home from the hospital and actually recovered, pretty much on my own, were irrelevant. Dad suggested to her that they ask Chris to watch me to make sure I was okay. Mom initially rejected the idea out of hand due to her animosity toward Kathlene, but after an extended conversation, she agreed that the Forn house would once again be the best place for me to stay while they were at work.

I protested that I was doing fine, and that I didn’t need a baby-sitter. All my words did was earn a glare from my mother and a frown from my father. Without waiting for another word I walked away to my room and shut my door. Neither Mom nor Dad realized that I hadn’t seen Chris once since he’d walked out on me in the hospital.

The next day, Mom took me up to the Forns’ place as she went to work. She admonished me to mind Chris and do as he said. I snorted in disgust as I got out of the car without responding to her farewell. I walked up to the front door followed by my mother’s words.

"I mean it, Brian! You best behave!"

Again, it wasn’t worth the effort to respond. She waited until I knocked on the door to pull away.

When no one answered after a moment, I walked around the garage to the weight room. The door was open. When I looked in, I saw Chris observing his form in front of the mirror as he did curls with fifty pound dumbbells. What made me catch my breath was that his body was covered only in a skimpy pair of running shorts. A part of my mind that had been dormant since my trip to the hospital exploded to life. My knees grew unsteady from the intensity of the lust that struck me. I had to grasp the doorjamb to keep from falling over due to the weakness in my limbs.

The noise I made seemed to go unnoticed as the handsome young man continued with his exercises. I couldn’t take my eyes off of him. Every move he made was perfect, filled with grace and strength. The muscles rippled and strained under skin well tanned by the summer sun. His short brown hair was now bleached nearly to a dark blond. In a word, he was beautiful.

Chris completed his set and walked toward me, reaching for his water. He didn’t notice me until he was drinking deeply from the bottle. He abruptly lowered the bottle.

"Uh, um, hi, Brian," he said nervously.

I continued to stare at him, unabashedly studying his whole form.

"God Chris," I said with awe in a low tone.

Chris’ looked puzzled, wondering what I going to say.

"You’re absolutely…"

At the last second I reclaimed my wits and turned my back on him. This was something that couldn’t happen. I loved Chris. More than that, I was in love with him and had been for a long time, but I knew Chris would never love me in that way. To believe otherwise was to delude myself, and I had vowed to never again live life as the result of delusion.

Pete returning to me was a delusion I had maintained beyond all reason. It was my choice to do so, and I was making the choice not to live in the delusion that I could have any sort of relationship with Chris beyond fraternity. My head drooped in resignation as the void that was my heart grew larger. I heard the rustle of a T-shirt being pulled on.

"Brian, are you okay?" Chris asked.

"No, Chris, I’m not. Look, I’m sorry for putting you through all that…"

"Brian, it doesn’t matter. It never did."

Chris pulled me into a loose hug. I didn’t respond to him. I don’t know what leap of logic led him to his next statement, but it affected me greatly.

"Pete is out there somewhere," Chris said quietly. "You’ll see him again."

I pushed away from him while the hole in my soul grew deeper. I looked into his eyes with a sad intensity.

"You don’t have to do that anymore, Chris. I know the truth now."

"Do what?" He asked with puzzlement.

"Pretend that Pete is going to come back. He’s not. I’ve been lying to myself."

Chris frowned and his eyes narrowed.

"Pete is gone," I continued. "I won’t see him again. I figured that out while I was in the hospital, and that’s the reason I went home instead of coming back here with you and Mom. Everything was a lie, Chris; only a dream… that I turned into a nightmare."

"You’re giving up?" Chris asked in disbelief.

"No, Chris," I replied. "Giving up means there was something to try for in the first place. I’m finally accepting the truth, now. That’s all."

"Brian…"

Chris pulled me to him again and squeezed me tightly. Hesitantly, I put my arms around him as tears began to fall, accompanied by an ache that was growing worse as the seconds ticked by. I clutched Chris tightly as I began to cry truly for the first time since my dreams. Chris was there, just as he’d always been, to hold me, protect me, and cry with me as I did.

When we had recovered, Chris and I sat down to talk. We hadn’t seen or spoken to each other in six weeks. He told me about his last weeks at school and finals. Chris received good marks for the second semester, but not as good as they could have been if I’d helped Chris with his homework like I’d promised I would. My brother chewed me out when I expressed the guilt I felt about letting him down. For some reason he didn’t think there was anything for me to feel guilty about.

We eventually exhausted all the topics except the one I was trying to avoid: what had happened to me. I debated on telling him the details of my dreams and finally decided against it. All they did was point out how pathetic I really was. Instead, I told him that my brush with death made me realize that I was living a nightmare of my own making, and if I was to have a real life, I had to let it go.

Chris listened to me talk and made the appropriate noises and comments as I spoke, but I don’t believe he was convinced I had made the right choices, especially my decision to live with my parents again. We didn’t argue about it, per se, but our verbal exchange left no secret of Chris’ position on the matter. The conversation carried on as we left the weight room and went into the house to get a snack.

"Look, Brian, let me ask you something. Are you happy there? With your folks?" Chris questioned me in the middle of the conversation.

He was sitting next to me on the couch in the family room, leaning back against the arm so he could face me and eating one of the many sandwiches he had fixed for us.

"No," I sighed. "But then I don’t really remember ever being happy."

I looked up at Chris in shocked realization, watching his eyes. Feelings I’d been trying to fight off came rushing back as I realized the import of that statement.

"Chris, I don’t know what it’s like to be happy."

Sympathy again filled his expression. "Bri, you will. I know you will. You’ll see. When you and Pete…"

"Chris, stop it!" I barked, sitting up straight in emphasis. "Me and Pete ain’t going to happen! He’s gone!"

"He may be gone now, but he’ll come back," Chris said calmly.

"No he won’t!"

"Yes he will, Brian," he asserted.

"Prove it!" I demanded hotly.

"Prove he won’t!" Chris commanded me in return.

We glared at each other for a moment, but I backed down, sitting back and closing my eyes.

"There’s no reason for him to come back, Chris."

"Yes there is, Brian: you."

"Please stop," I pleaded desperately. "Chris, I know what you’re trying to do, and I appreciate it. I really do. But you have to understand that the dream is dead. That’s all it was: a dream. I need to move on with my life, and the only way for me to do that is to let him go. Don’t you understand that?"

"I understand what you’re saying, Brian," Chris said disapprovingly, "but I think you’re selling Pete short. And yourself for that matter."

"What am I supposed to do?" I demanded. "Kill myself? How long am I supposed to wait? How long do I keep my life on hold waiting for something that is never going to happen?"

Chris’ eyes narrowed until they were thin slits as I spoke. His expression was one of stubborn defiance. It was obvious he didn’t agree with what I was saying and that he wasn’t going to budge in his stance.

Before he could say anything in rebuttal I blurted, "Can we just drop this? I’m doing what I have to so I can live my life!"

"Like you were doing before you went into the hospital?" Chris asked cruelly.

"That’s not fair and you know it," I said coldly after a slight pause. "Look, maybe I should just go. I knew you wouldn’t understand."

I stood up and walked toward the front door, but Chris’ voice stopped me.

"Who are you?"

I whirled on him as a chill ran down my spine. "What did you say?"

"Who are you?" Chris repeated. "You aren’t the Brian I know. The Brian I know wouldn’t be running away," he accused harshly.

"What’s that supposed to mean?" I demanded.

"You can’t handle it anymore, huh?" Chris said tauntingly, ignoring my query.

"What are you talking about?"

Chris stood right in front of me, staring down at me as he spoke. "All I know is that for the last two years and more you’ve held on to Pete with both hands and your teeth, but now you’re just giving it up. Did it get too hard?" Chris taunted.

"Fuck you! I almost died!"

"But not because you held on to Pete!"

"Why then? Huh?" I demanded.

"You almost killed yourself because you didn’t know how to deal with it all and you wouldn’t let anyone help you! That’s why!" Chris shouted. "God damn it, Brian, I wanted to help you so much, but you wouldn’t let me in. You wouldn’t even let Mom in. You just kept swallowing it and holding it all inside. You swallowed so much it didn’t even leave room for food!"

I was stunned to see tears in his eyes.

Chris leaned forward, his eyes hard and voice low, his nose an inch from mine. "How do you think it felt? Do you think I enjoyed watching you starve? Do you think it was fun to walk into your room and not be able to wake you up? To pick you up and carry you down the stairs to the car and feel like I wasn’t carrying anything at all?"

Chris raised his voice. "Do you think it made me happy when they told me you could die?

"You ain’t the only one who lived the last two years, Brian! I was there, right by your fucking side, watching you destroy yourself. I did the best I could to support you, to be your friend. I didn’t go through all of that with and for you to have you say, ‘I was just kidding.’"

"What do you want me to do, Chris?" I asked plaintively.

"Live, dammit! You can still have a life and not let what you’re feeling about Pete take over! I want to help! I want to be here when you need me, but how am I supposed to know when that is if you won’t let me in? Why you won’t let me in?"

"I can’t!" I cried in a desperate tone.

"Why not!" Chris thundered savagely.

I took a deep shuddering breath before I answered timidly, "Because you won’t like what you see."

"Beca… Brian, for God’s sake!" Chris spat in frustration. "I’ve seen you puke on yourself, piss yourself, shit yourself, almost kill yourself… I’m still here! What else could there possibly be?"

This was the moment of truth. I had to tell him or it would stand in between us for the rest of our lives.

"Chris, there’s something I’ve been hiding from you… for a long time."

"You’re gay?" Chris asked sarcastically. "You know that doesn’t bother me."

Chris had made the obvious assumption, and I jumped on it without thought. Instead of revealing what was truly in my heart, I took the coward’s way out.

"Well, it bothers me."

Chris responded with confusion. "What?"

"Being gay. I hate it."

"Brian, what’s going on with you?" Chris asked simply, his worry coming through clearly in his voice.

"Sometimes… It’s… Being gay… Fuck! Chris, why did you let me sleep with you all those nights?

"Because you needed someone, and you’re my brother. That’s why."

"You never thought that me being gay…"

"It’s never bothered me, Bri," Chris said with long-suffering patience, and then he asked after a slight pause, "Is that why you sort of pulled away from me? Because you were afraid you’d get attracted to me?"

I swallowed hard. Chris would never know just how close his guess was to the truth.

"Because I was afraid I’d do something to ruin it all." I managed to whisper afterward. "I needed you, Chris. I needed you so fucking much. You were the only thing that could stop my nightmares. You were the only thing that kept me sane. You were my safe place, Chris. I couldn’t let my dick screw it up."

Chris spoke quietly, his tone now laced with anxiety. "What happened when you stopped staying with me on those nights?"

I stood and walked to the window. I was pretty sure I knew what he was asking but I wanted to make him say it so I could be certain.

Without looking at him I asked, "What do you mean, Chris?"

"Don’t play dumb, Brian. It doesn’t suit you," Chris rebuked stingingly.

"What do you think happened?" I asked mildly.

"The nightmares came back," Chris stated.

I nodded slowly, staring at the birds in the tree just outside the window.

"Bad ones?" He asked quietly.

"Depends what you mean by bad," I hedged.

"Brian…" Chris tone carried a threat as he was becoming annoyed at my evasion.

I glanced back at him and answered irritably, "Bad enough, okay?"

Chris then asked, "How did you make it through? I’ve seen what your nightmares can do to you."

I shrugged. "I just… learned how to deal with them."

"Do you still have them now?"

I shrugged again.

"Answer me, Brian," Chris softly demanded.

I couldn’t meet his gaze any longer and turned back to the window.

"Yes, I still have them. Every fucking night I have them. Nothing I do seems to help."

"What are they about, Bri?" Chris asked with compassion as he walked up behind me.

"About you and me, me and Pete, or just me. They’re not always about bad things, but that doesn’t make them hurt any less. The ones I hate the most are with me and Pete being together and just living."

"You’ll see him again, Bri," Chris insisted. "I know you will."

I whipped around, furious. "God… damn it! Will you just stop it? I don’t have any hope left!"

"Then I’ll hope for you, Brian," Chris said quietly. "I have enough for both of us."

I stood there gawking, absorbing his last statement. When what he’d said finally sunk in, his words broke me. I fell into him and he held me as I soaked his shirt with more tears, all the while welcoming the comfort and safety his strong arms and solid frame gave me.

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