Shattered: An Extreme Risk Novel (6 page)

“It’s just one day of boarding, Ash.”

Fuck. Looks like I can move, after all. I scramble off the couch. “I don’t do that anymore.”

“I know that. I do.” He pauses, thrusts a hand through his hair. “I just don’t know why.”

“Fuck you, Z. You know exactly why.”

“The accident. Yeah, I get that you feel guilty. You have nothing to feel guilty about, but believe me. I get that.”

The thing is, I know he does. Hell, with the shit in his past, I figured he’d be the last one to push me on this.

“Still, you’re throwing your whole life away, Ash. For what? Feeling guilty won’t bring your parents back. Believe me, I know.”

“Jesus Christ, you think it’s that easy? You think this is just about guilt?”

He stands then, too, though he makes sure not to crowd me. Which is good, considering I feel like I’m about to shatter into a million tiny pieces.

“What’s it about, then?”

“Logan. It’s about Logan.” Everything is about him now. It has to be.

“I know that. But I still don’t get it. You spend as many hours away from him when you’re at work as you would snowboarding. So what’s the deal?”

Is he really that dense? “Logan loved snowboarding. He fucking loved it. He was never happier than when he was tearing up the pipe or shredding the mountain.”

“You think I don’t know that? I was right there with you, teaching him how to board all those years ago. Right there, watching him, in all those youth competitions.” His voice breaks and for the first time, I see how much this whole thing is tearing Z up, too. It’s just another hit,
just another weight pressing down on me.

But, at least maybe he’ll understand now. Understand why I can’t board. Understand why I can’t go meet this Timmy kid when I have a badly injured kid of my own to deal with.

“So, you get why I can’t board, right? He loved it so much and now he’s paralyzed, because of me. How the fuck can I get on a board, knowing that? How the fuck can I go out and do what he loves when he’ll never be able to do it again? It’d be like rubbing his nose in it and I won’t do that. I can’t.”

Z doesn’t answer for long seconds, maybe even minutes, and when he does his face is carefully blank, his eyes revealing nothing. I hate that look. He wore it for too many years before Ophelia, and as I look at it now, I realize it’s been months since I’ve seen it. Months since he’s felt the need to hide his feelings behind a mask. It makes me wary, makes me wonder what he really thinks about this whole fucking mess.

“I get why you
think
you can’t board.”

I freeze. “That’s not the same thing as actually getting it.”

“No. It’s not.” He blows out a long breath, runs an agitated hand through his hair. “Man, I get where you are. I do. Fuck, I lived where you are for years. But you were the first one to tell me I had to keep going, that I couldn’t let what happened to my sister rule my whole fucking life.”

“It’s not the same thing.”

“Oh, yeah? You’re drowning in guilt, drowning in the fact that you’re healthy and your brother isn’t, right? That you can do things he’ll never be able to do again. How is that not exactly the same thing I was feeling?”

Because Lily’s dead. She died and what you did couldn’t hurt her anymore. The words are right there on the tip of my tongue, and I want to lash out with them. Want to use them to push him so far away that he’ll never fucking try to talk about this shit again.

But in the end, I can’t do it. Not now, when Z is trying so hard to get his shit—get his life—together. Not now, when he has Ophelia and he’s finally in therapy and he’s doing everything right. Not now, when he’s vulnerable in a way I’ve never seen him before.

If I kicked him now, I’m not sure either one of us would ever recover.

But goddamnit, I need to do something. Every fucking breath I take is like a knife in my windpipe, like shards of shattered glass working their way through my veins.

Only there’s nothing to do. Nothing to say. Nothing to stop the fucking nightmare Logan and I are locked inside. The knowledge is there, inside me, battering at my consciousness with every breath I take. Which is why, in the end, all I do is bend over and start picking up the cans that litter the coffee table. “You should probably go. I’ve got to work in the morning.”

“Ash—”

“I can’t—” My voice breaks under the strain of everything I don’t say. “Look, just go, okay?”

“Logan would understand, Ash. I know you don’t want to hurt him, but, fuck, man. You’re the best goddamn snowboarder I’ve ever seen.”

“Yeah, right. That’s why you’ve got two gold medals and I’ve got dick.” Shit. That came out sounding a lot more bitter than I intended it to.

“Yeah, well, if you want them, you need to stop acting like a pussy.” Z glares at me, arms spread wide in obvious challenge. “You need to get your ass back on that fucking snowboard and come and get them.”

Nice. No sympathy from my best friend. Which, actually, is really nice. I’ve been drowning in sympathy—from Ophelia, from Cam, from Luc, from Sarah, from everyone—for what feels like forever. “It’s not about the fucking medals, Z.”

“You think I don’t know that? If it was, I would have fucking given them to you a long time ago. But what this is about—which is you punishing yourself—doesn’t work, either. You’ve already changed your whole life for Logan. Has the kid gotten a raw deal? Absolutely. But you’ve been there for him through everything. From the moment he woke up in that hospital room, you’ve given up everything to be there for him. But that doesn’t mean you have to give up snowboarding, too. It doesn’t mean you have to give up who you are just so you can take care of him.”

His words ring through the room, seem to bounce off walls and echo all around me. Or maybe it’s just my own head they’re echoing in. Either way, it doesn’t matter. Either way, “Even if I wanted to snowboard again, it’s too dangerous. I can’t take that kind of risk, not now. Logan’s already lost Mom and Dad. What the hell would happen to him if I got hurt or died, too? Who would take care of him?”

Z doesn’t have an answer for that. I can tell by the way his eyes dart around the room, like he’s searching for inspiration. But he’s got nothing, because there is nothing. Nothing to say. Nothing to do. Oh, I know if something happened, my friends would do what they could, but the fact is all of them are boarders. They all do dangerous shit on a daily basis. He’d be no better off with them than he is with me.

“You should go,” I tell him, glancing at the clock in an effort to break the silence stretching between us. “Ophelia will be getting out of class soon.”

“I can stay. If you”—he clears his throat—“want to talk or something.”

“I think we’ve talked enough, don’t you?”

“Maybe. For now.” He looks a little relieved, and I don’t blame him. This talking about feelings and shit isn’t how either one of us normally operates.

“Shoot me that woman’s contact info and I’ll give her a call,” he tells me as he walks
toward the door. “See if I can set something up with that kid. What’s his name?”

“Timmy.”

“Yeah, Timmy. I may not be the great Ash Lewis, but maybe he’ll take sloppy seconds.”

It’s my turn to roll my eyes. “Don’t be a douche.”

He grins before ducking out the door. “Hey, I’m just saying it how it is. Everybody
looooves
Ash. You’re
sooooo
dreamy.”

I flip him off before closing the door in his face. God, it’s fucking ridiculous how much I want a drink. And not a beer, either. A shot of whiskey—or three—would be nice right about now. Or a couple hits. Something, anything, to take the edge off.

“You lied to me.”

Fuck. I turn at the sound of my brother’s voice, to find him sitting in his chair at the edge of the foyer. “What’s wrong? Couldn’t you sleep?” I ignore the accusation he hurled at me, even as I desperately try to find an excuse that he’ll buy.

“Kind of hard to sleep with you and Z yelling at each other.”

Shit. I hadn’t realized we’d gotten that loud. “Sorry. Can I, uh, take you back to bed?”

“I can get myself back to bed,” he tells me, all fourteen-year-old attitude. “I’m not completely helpless, you know.”

“Of course I know that.”

He glares at me. “Besides, I don’t need help from a liar anyway.”

Goddamnit. “It’s not like that, Logan.”

“Not like what? You said you were just taking a break from boarding. You said you didn’t have the heart for it after Mom and Dad died. You said you’d go back to it next year, when the snow hits. You said—” He breaks off with a sob.

I’m across the room in a second, squatting down next to the chair so I can look him in the eye even as I curse myself. Curse Z. I want to hug him, but his body language is screaming at me to back off, so I settle for putting a hand on his knee—right up until I remember he can’t feel the touch anymore. Can’t feel anything from the waist down.

“I don’t have the heart for it right now, Logan. That’s the truth. Every time I even think about boarding, I see Mom and Dad and—”

“Me. You see me. Your pathetic little brother who is so sad, so selfish, that he can’t handle the idea of you snowboarding ever again just because he can’t. Right? You think I’m so weak, so pitiful, that you’re going to give up the only thing you’ve ever been good at for me.” He sounds angrier than I’ve ever heard him. “Do you think that’s what I want, Ash? Do you think that’s what I fucking want?”

“Of course, I don’t. But there’s a lot to consider right now—”

“Whatever,” he snarls at me, then wheels his chair around and starts booking it down the
hallway. If I’m honest, I’m a little shocked at how fast he can move when he wants to.

I trail behind him, trying to get him to listen to reason, but he’s not having any of it. “I heard you, Ash. I heard everything you said. You think this is easy for me? You think I like the fact that my friends don’t know how to talk to me? That they don’t come over because I can’t go to the lake with them, can’t go swimming, can’t play fucking basketball without this wheelchair?”

Guilt crushes me at his words, makes me feel even more like a piece of shit than I already do. “Logan—”

“I get it from them and I take it because I have to, because I don’t have a choice and because I get where they’re coming from. They don’t know what to say or how to act around me or anything like that. But you … you’re my brother. I don’t need you to treat me like I’m different, too. Like I’m useless. And I sure as shit don’t need you to give up snowboarding for me.”

“I’m not giving it up for you,” I tell him, injecting a forcefulness into my voice that I’m far from feeling right now. “I’m giving it up because it’s the right thing to do. Because you matter more to me than any stupid sport ever will. I need you to understand that.”

“And I need you to understand that you matter to me, too. I don’t want you to be miserable because of me.”

“I’m not. Logan, I swear, I’m not.”

“Yeah, right. You think I can’t tell the difference in you? You think I can’t tell how much you fucking hate your life?”

“That has nothing to do with you!”

“Maybe not. But it has everything to do with snowboarding, and that has to do with me, so …”

Jesus Christ, when did my
little
brother get this fucking logical? This fucking smart? And when did I get so goddamned tongue-tied? “Logan—”

“I’m tired, Ash.” We’re at his room now and Logan wheels inside. “Leave me alone so I can get some sleep.” The door slams behind him.

Standing there in that hall—fists clenched and forehead resting against the cool wood of his door, while the harsh sound of Logan’s sobs echoes all around me—is one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. I reach for the doorknob a dozen times, but in the end I don’t turn it.

Because he asked me not to.

Because, from the time he got out of the hospital, his room has been his safe zone. The place he can cry or rage or do whatever he needs to do to come to grips with what’s happened to him. Because no matter how much this whole thing has fucked me up, I’m a twenty-one-year-old man. He’s a fourteen-year-old boy who has lost total control over not just his life, but his body,
too.

If he wants privacy, if he doesn’t want to talk to me, then I owe him that much control. That much respect. Especially when I’m the one who ruined what had been a pretty good night.

But I can’t just walk away, either. Can’t just leave him when he’s this hysterical.

Not knowing what else to do, I slide down until I’m sitting with my back braced against the door. And then I wait, head bent and unshed tears burning behind my eyes, for my baby brother to finally quiet down and fall asleep.

It takes a long, long time.

“What’s wrong, Tansy?” my mother asks, hovering over me with a pitcher of fresh pineapple juice in her hand. “Are you feeling okay?” Her hand goes immediately to my forehead.

I want to shrug her off—I’m so sick of her worrying about me having a fever or not eating or the cancer coming back—but in the end, I just tolerate it. Of course I do. She and my dad have been through hell for the last ten years as I’ve fought this damn disease, and it’s only normal for us all to have a little PTSD now that I’m in remission. Or at least, that’s what the shrink they force me to go to says.

“I’m fine, Mom. Just tired. I didn’t get much sleep last night.”

“Are you hurting? Is something wrong?” She sets the juice on the table and sits down next to me. Her hands go to my neck, my shoulder, my arm, looking for bruises and other telltale signs that aren’t there. It’s my body and I’d kind of like her to back off, to trust me to know when something’s wrong, but again, that’s not going to happen. Not anytime soon anyway.

My sister, Anna, is sitting across from me and I try not to giggle as she crosses her eyes behind Mom’s back. Thank God I have her. She’s only a year and a half younger than me, and definitely the comic relief in the family. I don’t think I would have gotten through all the cancer shit I’ve faced for the last decade if I didn’t have her at my back, cracking jokes and making everything seem not quite as bad as it was.