“There’s nothing they can do! Shut up about it already!”
I thought maybe the video had frozen because Warren had stopped moving—he didn’t even blink—but a light continued flashing on one of the hospital monitors behind him.
I wanted to say something to make Renny feel better, but I could hardly begin to imagine how my brother was suffering. I wondered how I would feel if I woke up one day and couldn’t walk, couldn’t control my bladder or take a dump without help. Whatever I imagined was nothing compared to Renny’s reality. He wasn’t ready to think about how to move on from his accident, so I gave up trying to force-feed him hope.
“Mom and Dad driving you crazy yet?” I asked.
“Yeah,” Warren mumbled. “I wish they’d go home.”
I shrugged. “At least they’re getting along. I think this is the most time they’ve spent together in a year.”
“Great. All it took was one of their kids suffering a nearly fatal accident.” Renny’s chin fell to his chest and we sat there together, not speaking for a while. I didn’t know whether he was trying to indicate he wanted me to cut the connection and leave him alone or if he simply needed me there even if we didn’t talk.
Just when the silence began to veer into uncomfortable territory, Warren said, “I lied when I said I didn’t care about sex. I’m going to die a loser virgin.”
“You’re not a loser.”
Renny ignored me. “You’ve done it, right?”
I wanted to tell him I’d never had sex either so he didn’t have to be the guy whose little brother had done it before him. And the funny thing was that technically, with Tommy gone, I hadn’t actually gone all the way with anyone, but I remembered sleeping with Tommy, so I figured it had to count.
“Yeah,” I said.
“What’s it like?”
“Renny . . .”
“Come on,” he said. “At least tell me what I’m never going to have. You owe me that.”
I sat quietly for a moment, wishing the Wi-Fi would cut out so I wouldn’t have to explain sex to my older brother. Aside from being totally mortifying, I wasn’t sure my experiences were common. Lua had told me sex with Jaime had felt like an endless battle in a war she could never win, Dustin was still a virgin, and I didn’t want to think about how Calvin would have explained sex. I didn’t know if he’d slept with any of the girls he’d dated, and he’d said Coach Reevey was the only guy he’d done it with other than me, but Reevey had drugged him, so for Calvin, sex had probably felt like an ambush.
“For me,” I said, “sex was like reading an epic story. Kind of confusing at first, but when everything began to make sense, the world disappeared—I lost myself in something bigger than me—and when it was over, all I could think about was going back to the beginning and doing it again.”
“Only you could make sex sound boring.”
But it wasn’t. It hadn’t been. Sex with Tommy had been the single most beautiful experience of my life.
“Yeah,” I said. “You’re not missing much.”
This time the connection really did stutter, and Warren and I spent a minute calling back and forth to each other. When the video cleared up, Renny said, “Can I tell you something?”
“Anything.”
“I’m not sure I can live like this. I’m not sure I want to.”
“Don’t you even think about hurting yourself, Renny,” I said. “There’s more to life than sex.”
“Says the guy who can stick his dick anywhere he wants to the guy who can’t feel his.” Warren clenched his jaw, and I wasn’t sure if it was from the pain of his injuries or from thinking about what he’d lost. “You were right. I should have told Emilia how I felt before I left.”
“You still can.”
Renny scoffed. “I can hardly sleep. Not even the drugs help. And when I lie awake in the middle of the night in this stupid fucking hospital, all I can think about is how I wish the fall had killed me.”
My parents shouldn’t have left him alone. I touched my phone in my pocket, reminding myself to call them when I was done with Renny and tell them to never leave him alone again.
“Please don’t say that, Warren. I need you.”
Renny fired off a bitter laugh. “Don’t bullshit me, brother. You don’t need me. You never needed me.”
“That’s not true.”
“It is, and you know it.” He closed his eyes and I thought he was going to fall asleep, but then he opened them again. “I’ve always kinda hated you, Oz.”
“Tell me how you really feel,” I said with a halfhearted smile.
“I’m serious,” Renny said. “Everything comes so easily to you. Whenever you want to do something, you go out and do it. And the worst part is that you barely have to try. Do you know how great you could be if you put in the tiniest bit of effort?”
I’d thought Warren hated me the way older brothers always hate their little brothers, but I never considered that he actually hated me.
“Everything’s not easy for me.”
“Bullshit,” he said. “Remember in third grade when you were in that musical? You’d never sung before, but they gave you a solo anyway. There wasn’t a dry eye in the audience by the time you were done. And then you never sang again. I finally found the one thing I was good at, and now it’s gone. You’re good at everything. You could be great at anything.”
“I’d cut off a couple of toes to have someone tell me what to do with my life, Renny,” I said. “Look at Lua. She’s knows what she’s passionate about, and she pursues it with this tireless determination that blows my mind. You say I can do anything, but no matter what I choose, there will always be a hundred other things I’ll miss out on.”
“Boo-fucking-hoo.” Warren gave his head a little shake and flinched. “Mom and Dad told me they don’t want you going away to college.” I started to reply, but he cut me off. “I told them to stop being assholes.”
“I’m sure that went over well.”
“You’d be surprised at the shit you can get away with when people feel sorry for you.”
“Maybe you could guilt them into not getting divorced.”
I waited, hoping the joke would elicit at least a wan smile, but Warren’s face remained blank.
“Renny—”
“Look, if you don’t go away to college, I’ll never forgive you.”
“And how am I supposed to pay for it without Mom and Dad’s help?”
“You can have my college fund,” Renny said. “I’m never going to use it.”