Here Without You Read Free

I’ve not told Dori about this yet. Not
any
of it. There hasn’t been an appropriate time in the past week to bring up the fact that Brooke and I had a son four and a half years ago. A son I’d denied was mine to Brooke’s face and in my own head until a few weeks ago. A son she gave up for adoption right after she had him.
    With what happened to Dori in high school, this wasn’t a piece of my past I could disclose offhandedly, and I’ve never been the king of insightful situation management. Not to mention the fact that I’ve never told a living soul about this. Not John, not my parents,
no one
.
    ‘God-fucking-dammit.’
    ‘Yeah,’ Brooke says. She has no idea.
    Into the silence of our mutual shock, my phone beeps, and this time, I check the display. Dori is calling me back. ‘Look, I have to go. I’ll call you tomorrow.’
    ‘Fine.’ Brooke hangs up, and I flash over, shelving our conversation for later.
    ‘Dori, I’m sorry –’
    ‘I’m telling them tomorrow, first thing. Please try to understand – this is difficult for them, especially after Deb’s accident. It’s not about you, really. They don’t know you.They’re only afraid I’ll be hurt, and that’s all this response is based on.’ She blurts her words like a practised speech, defensive and placating. ‘They may … want to talk to you.’
    Parents who want to talk to me. Huh. And I’m not only considering it, I’m determined to do it. This is the stuff of alternate universes.
    ‘I’m not going to hurt you, Dori,’ I say, meaning it. ‘And I shouldn’t have pushed you to tell them,’ I add, half-meaning it.
    ‘Yes, you should have. I haven’t kept my promise to you, either. I told you I would never be ashamed of you – and I’m not, Reid – but this must have seemed that way to you. I’m sorry.’
    I hadn’t realized until the moment she verbalizes it that this was
exactly
how it felt to me. She can hurt me in places I didn’t know I was vulnerable, soothe aches I didn’t know existed. How does she manage this sort of empathy?
    ‘I wish you were here right now,’ I say, unable to concentrate on anything but the need to pull her under me and shut the entire world out.
    ‘I was just there, you know,’ she retorts.
    Smartass
. God, I want her.
    ‘Yeah, I know. Jesus, I’m a fu– uh, idiot.’
    Her hoarse little laugh at my interrupted curse yanks at my heart.
    ‘What if I sneak over to your house and climb into your bedroom window?’
    Laughing again, she says, ‘You can’t sneak anywhere in that car – certainly not in my neighbourhood. And there’sno tree or trellis for you to climb to my second-storey window …’
    I chuckle softly. ‘But you’re thinking about it, aren’t you?’
    Her exhalation sounds like a smile. ‘Yeah.’
    ‘Want me to tell you what I’d do, if your dad had been more obliging and installed a trellis or planted a tree just under your window?’
    ‘Maybe,’ she says softly, and I imagine her sucking that fat lower lip into her mouth.
    ‘Maybe?’
    ‘Okay. Yes. Tell me.’
    This is the thing about her – this, right here. She doesn’t play coy. That’s why the thought of her pushing me away is unacceptable. It wouldn’t be a play for attention like it always was with Brooke. Goodbye is
goodbye
to Dori, and I won’t let that happen.
    ‘Close your eyes and imagine those perfectly situated branches, right outside your window.’
    ‘Um, okay.’
    I lie back, relaxing, breathing in the subtle trace of her still on my pillows. ‘You’ll leave your window open – the one the fish are swimming towards. It’ll be late, and try as you might, you can’t stay awake waiting for me. I’ll slip quietly across the room in the dark, following bars of moonlight to your bed.’ I entertain the thought of her, curled up under the covers, and my fingers twist a knot into the unmade bedding beneath me. ‘What do you wear to sleep?’
    ‘Just a T-shirt,’ she whispers.
    Air hisses