With You ✔

28

Kit

"Where's Ellie?"

"She went to get a pizza, she'll be back." I step into Finn's bedroom and look closely at him, expecting to see a glimpse of the broken boy Ellie said he was the night he first told her about seeing our dad. He looks fine though, pushing up his glasses as he looks up from his phone to me. "Can we talk though?"

"Sure." He scoots over so that there's room for me next to him on the bed, "I guess you want to talk about the whole meeting our dad thing?"

"Yeah, kinda." I take a seat beside him, "Why didn't you ask me to go with you the first time?"

He shrugs, fidgeting with his hands in his lap, "I know how you feel about him."

It's true, I've never tried to hide how I feel about our dad and his leaving. Even when we were four and it was all fresh, I never really cried about the fact that he was suddenly gone. I was sad, sure, but I was more angry than anything. I was mad at him for making my mom cry, for making my brother cry, and for not saying goodbye. At a very young age I had decided that I - that we - were better off without him.

None of that matters though. I may hate our dad and never once in all the years he's been gone did I want to see him again, but I love my brother and if something is important or hurting him - then it's important to me. I would have put my own feelings aside, I would have done whatever he needed, and it hurts to think he doesn't know that. "If you needed me, I would have been there, Finn. It doesn't matter what I think or how I feel, if you need me, I'm there. Always."

"But that's the problem."

"What is?"

He doesn't look at me, instead he keeps his eyes on the floor, still twisting his hands nervously. I watch him, trying to figure out what's going on inside his head as he takes a minute to answer me, but when he finally does, it knocks the breath out of me a bit. "You might not always be here."

When I was first diagnosed I spent so much time mad at the tumor, at myself, at God, and at the doctors that I shut down for awhile and didn't even speak to my family. Then when I came to terms with everything myself, I never really talked to my family about how they felt or how they were coping. It was just too hard to see the fear and sadness in their eyes or hear their voices shake every time the tried to talk about it, so we just didn't. I know Finn struggles with the thought of me dying, but we've never really talked about it, not in a real and open way.

"Finn, -"

"I think that's why I went." He's still looking at the ground, but I keep my eyes on him, hanging on his every word, "You were in the hospital and all those memories of last year just came back and I was reminded that even though you seem better, you're not. It's just going to keep getting worse until...until you're just not here."

"So you went to find him because of me?"

"Because you're going to leave me too, and I know you don't want to and you would stay if you had any say in the matter. But Kit, he left us and I don't know why. I don't know what we did, or what I did to make him not want us. I thought that maybe if he knew that you were sick he would..." He places his head in his hands and grabs at the ends of his hair, frustrated. "It's stupid. The whole thing was stupid."

"You thought it would make him come back." Finn doesn't say anything but he nods his head, "It's not stupid, Finn. I don't know why he left either, I don't think any of us do, but it wasn't anything we - and especially nothing that you alone - did. We were four, and he was our dad, nothing we did would have made him abandon us. He was supposed to love us but he just didn't. He doesn't and there's nothing we can do to change that now."

Raising his head, he looks over at me and I can see it now, the brokenness that Ellie was talking about. I can see over a years worth of pain and hidden emotion in his eyes, and once again it hurts to think he didn't know he could open up to me. "I know. I just - seeing you and watching you slowly - I just can't, Kit. I don't know what to do or how to act, I don't know if I can handle it. Every time I think of you not being here, it's like this black hole takes away every part of me until there's nothing left. You're not just my brother, or my twin, or my best friend Kit, you're - you're -"

I place a hand on his shoulder, "I know. So are you. And I swear to you that I am going to stick around for as long as I possibly can. I'm not going to leave you a second sooner than I have to."

"Are you scared?"

I didn't used to be, or at least not as much as I am now. I used to just be angry, but now I'm scared all the time. I never know which migraine or random stab of pain in my head will be the last. I never know if when I go to sleep at night if I'll wake up sweating and paralyzed with pain. I don't know if I'll pass out in the middle of the halls at school or while driving, I don't know when my last moments will be or how it will happen. "I get more and more terrified every day. Every time I see Ellie smile, or mom laugh, or you do something stupid, I get a little more scared because I don't want to leave any of you. I don't want to miss out on anything or not be here for you guys when you need me."

His eyes stare back at mine, and for the first time, I can see myself looking back at me. Right now Finn looks just like the reflection I see in the mirror every morning, with fear, sadness, and unanswered questions etched onto his face. Only when his mouth moves does he look more like himself, "Nothing will be the same, there will be a hole and no way to fill it."

We sit in silence for a minute, both of us thinking of our own haunting thoughts, and then I remember something that I had been meaning to ask him, "Hey Finn, can you make me a promise?"

"Anything."

"Promise me that you'll still invite El over for dinner and stuff. Her and mom really like each other and our home kind of fills a void for her since her own family isn't the greatest, and I don't want her to lose this."

"I'm pretty sure she'll just continue to invite herself over for dinner and walk through the front door like she owns the place, but yeah, I promise. Plus, I'll need her just as much as she'll need this place."

"She'll need you too."

"I know. I got her, I promise." I've never heard him be more serious in our whole lives, and it's like a weight is lifted off my shoulders. One of the things I have been worrying about the most, it Ellie falling back into believing that she has no friends, no one to really care about her, or be there for her. It was a stupid worry, of coarse Finn will be there for her - just like she'll never leave him.

"Knock, knock." Ellie pushes the door open a bit more with her foot and stands in the doorway with a pizza box in one hand, and a few DVD's in the other. "Can I come in?"

I look at Finn, "See, she doesn't walk around like she owns the place, she asks first."

"Excuse me?" Ellie asks as she enters the room and sits the pizza on the bed next to Finn and I.

"Finn said you walk around here like you own the place."

"I did not say it like that."

"You pretty much did." I say as I open the pizza to see what toppings she got, picking up a slice as the two of them begin to argue with one another. This is another one of the things I'm scared to miss, the two of them arguing and tormenting the other one minute and then minutes later sitting on opposites sides of me on the bed as we watch a movie as if nothing ever happened. But days like this, and moments like this, assure me that they'll be just fine without me.