Purposefully Accidental

Chapter Fifty-six

"Gonna miss this place," I admit.

Freddie chuckles. "No one says you can't visit me here, Hannah. The doors will always be open for you."

I smile a little. I remember spending my first winter here, staring out the window from my bedroom on the floor above, clutching strands of my hair that had fallen through the gaps of my fingers, pale as the thin layer of snow that's currently covering the ground.

It feels like yesterday but also a lifetime ago.

I swallow my dry throat before saying, "I hope you know that I'll be eternally indebted to you." Freddie immediately opens his mouth to interject, but I hold up a hand. "Not in the monetary sense. Just. I know this all has been crazy. You were stuck for the whole pandemic quarantine taking care of a cancer-ridden me. Cancer-ridden, grief-ridden, guilt-ridden me, on the brink of absolute madness. I can't... I don't remember a lot of things that happened in those months, but I know it couldn't have been easy living with me. I know I probably said some unforgivable things to you in my grief and anger."

Freddie just stares from across the room, but I can see that his eyes are beginning to glisten with tears, too. He says, "I'm just glad that you're okay again."

"I can't... there are a lot of things I don't remember from those months. You know, like my brain's still blocking it out." I know that my brain tends to do that when things get hard, as some kind of defense mechanism. My memories tend to get twisted, or parts of them missing. I know for a fact that there's a lot I don't remember clearly from that year. "I just remember a lot of crying and screaming. I can't really remember what I said to you, but it must've been awful." I look away from him, ashamed. "I do remember, though, that you just... couldn't look at me for the longest time. You'd run when I walked in the room, and your face... whatever I said to you must've been so hurtful. I'm really sorry for that, Freddie."

The silence that follows stretches for so long, I almost think he's left the room. I brave myself to look up, and Freddie's still there, standing rigidly. His eyes are wet, but his cheeks are still dry.

"Do you really not know why it hurt to look at you, Hannah?" he asks quietly. "Do you really... not remember why I had to leave the room when you were around?"

I force a thin smile on my face. "Why? Was it my balding head?" I joke, but his lips stay flat, unamused.

Freddie shakes his head and finally wipes his face with the back of his hand. "You could've gone home... before the city went into a complete lockdown. You would've been with your family then. But I made you stay here. I basically begged you to stay here. Didn't you remember?"

"I know I wanted to go home, but... but what did I say to you? What did I do?" I ask, unsure if I really want to hear the answer.

It's his turn now to look away, and there's a glimpse of the same expression I used to see on his face while I was sick. Like it was too hard to look at me. Like doing so made him ill.

"You didn't do anything. It was all me. I couldn't look at you because... because how could I? After what I did to you?" Freddie says to me in such a defeated voice, but I'm still trying to focus on remembering. "Remember... remember when Tony called you?"

"When he told me that he thought he was having symptoms?" I recall, my chest aching. It was one of the last times I ever got to hear my brother's voice. I don't even really remember what we talked about on that phone call.

Freddie nods weakly. "You promised him that you were coming home. But I didn't let you. I wanted you to stay in New York."

"I... yeah. I do remember that part." Freddie still won't look at me. "I was... I just got my diagnosis, too. But I hadn't told anybody else at that point. That was why you didn't want me to fly home, right? Because I was sick, and you didn't think it was safe for me to fly across the country."