“Ca-caw!” someone shouts from up high. We all follow the noise to the roof of the house. “Ca-caw!” Daisy, wearing an antler headband and a brown shirt, sits on the shingles. Her gaze is pinned right on my brother. “Hunt me.”
She might as well have said f**k me. I try to tune them out and feed my kid, but it’s hard not to overhear.
“Deer don’t ca-caw, Calloway,” Ryke deadpans.
She gasps. “How’d you know I was a deer?” Her smile brightens as she swings her legs off the ledge. Her hair is pulled back in a braid, her long scar visible across her face.
Lily slaps my arm repeatedly. “Nerd star alert,” she tells me.
Jesus Christ, I don’t have the mental stability to watch both couples at the same time. My brain will implode on impact. I purposefully just train my focus on my brother if I have to choose one. I missed his reply to Daisy, but he trashes his plate and heads to her.
Instead of entering the house, he climbs up the drainpipe, using his upper-body strength. Making it look like he’s taking the f**king stairs to reach Daisy. When he sits his ass on the shingles and kisses her, more than a few people clap and cheer.
But all I see is a guy who’ll be bedridden for a month and a half after a high-risk surgery. And even if he’s okay after that, I see a guy who’s willing to climb four-thousand foot cliffs with no rope to catch him.
My brother’s lifespan is shorter than mine. I know it. And I hate it.
He deserves to outlive me and every goddamn person here.
Never in my life did I think having a brother would change me. Make me better than who I am. But there’s something about siblings that pushes you to thrive in ways that a parent can’t.
“Hey, Lil,” I breathe, putting Moffy’s bottle down.
“Hmm?” She’s fixated on Connor and Rose, a giddy smile on her face. Her sister saved her. I said that to Ryke earlier, and it’s the f**king truth. Rose took care of Lily when I was in rehab; she was there when I should’ve been. When I couldn’t be.
And the words just leave me. “Someday,” I say, “I want another kid.”
She freezes and very slowly turns to face me, stunned in disbelief. I’ve never professed this or even let it linger for longer than a second. “What…?”
I lick my lips. “I believe that we can raise more than one kid. It doesn’t have to be in a year or two or even three. But someday, I want to meet Luna and whoever else. I don’t want Maximoff to be an only child like I was growing up.”
I’ve lived both versions: no siblings, siblings. For me, there’s no question which one I’d choose again.
I wait for Lily’s response, but her facial expression hasn’t shifted past shocked.
“Unless…you don’t…” I trail off, watching her chin quake.
And then she breaks into a smile, tears rolling down her cheeks. That’s a yes. She’s wanted this, I realize. But she didn’t entertain it—for me.
“You thought one and done?” I ask with a rising smile.
She nods, rubbing her forearms across her cheeks, drying her tears. “I know you love him,” she sniffs. “So much. But you never talked about it.”
I tuck a piece of hair behind her ear. “I never told you this but having a kid, it affected me.” I exhale these strong sentiments that propel me forward. “And I’m not saying it’s been easy or it’s been this magic solution to my problems. Sometimes it made things worse, overwhelmed me, but…it shook me. It woke me up.” I pause. “And somewhere in my head, I tightened the things that’d been coming loose. I know they can always unscrew again. I know that I can relapse down the line. But I’m not looking at the worst parts of my life anymore. I’m focusing on the best things I have. And there are a whole hell of a lot of those.”
Lily’s eyes say I love you. So many of them that my chest rises in sync with hers. Moffy in my arms, she inches closer to me and rests her cheek on my chest.
I hug her against me and kiss the outside of her lips. She’s not crossing her legs or squirming. Or pleading for sex. Tears squeeze through the creases of her eyes, this gorgeous, happy smile playing at her lips.
“I’m supposed to give you presents on your birthday,” she murmurs, “not the other way around.”
“You’ve given me enough to last a hundred more birthdays, love.” At twenty-five, I am in desperate love with a girl who desperately loves me back. There is nothing more that I want than to experience life with her.
She touches Moffy’s tiny fingers, and she skims his cheek with a gentle, caring brush of her thumb.
My family. My wife. My son.
Never did I think I’d be the recipient of fragile, precious things.
Every single part of me is alive today. And it’ll be tomorrow. I’m not dying in my own body anymore. I am truly living. Peace courses through me. It’s the quiet that I never thought existed. And the heaven that I never believed was meant for me.
Lily and I—we may have started our relationship as pretend.
But for as long as I can remember, our love has always been real.