Wing Jones(66)

“I’m thinking about Marcus,” I admit. And it’s like Marcus is already a ghost and is there in the tent with us. Haunting us. He’s sitting at the entrance, glaring at us with reproach.

Aaron rolls onto his back and closes his eyes. “I think about him all the time,” he whispers. “He’s never not in my head. But, Wing, we can’t stop living just because he has.”

“He’s not dead,” I say quickly, even as Ghost Marcus keeps staring at me. I scoot closer to Aaron.

“I know that,” says Aaron, his eyes still closed. Then his voice goes very quiet. “But he isn’t exactly living either.”

And now Ghost Marcus has moved from the edge of the tent and is sitting between us. I swear I hear the sleeping bag crinkle under the extra weight.

“Wing?” says Aaron, his eyes fluttering open. I stare at him through the body of Ghost Marcus. Who isn’t really a ghost. Because he isn’t really dead. But still. He’s here. Between us. “Don’t you think Marcus might be happy for us? You know. Be glad that we have each other? That we can comfort each other and all that crap?”

I smile, and to my amazement, Ghost Marcus smiles back. Maybe Aaron’s right.

“I mean, I know you’re his baby sister,” Aaron says. “You’ll always be his baby sister. No matter how fine you get.” He winks at me and I roll my eyes but can’t stop grinning. “And, Wing, I know this is so hard for you. It’s killing you. You have to know that I know. Because it’s killing me too. Marcus is my brother, and he always will be. Nothing could change that. Nothing ever will. But just because he’s like my brother … it doesn’t make you my sister. It doesn’t make you off-limits. Or it shouldn’t.” He sighs and closes his eyes again. “I don’t know, man. It’s so complicated.”

I lie down too, my hair fluffing out all around my head like an electrocuted halo on the top of the sleeping bag.

My hand finds his and I lace my fingers through his and squeeze.

“I know,” I say. “But it’s more than that. It isn’t just whatever … this is. Whatever…” I stop and swallow, nervous about what I’m going to say next. “Whatever we are…” I stop again, waiting for him to clarify that regardless of everything that has been happening, we aren’t a we. Not that kind of we. But he doesn’t. He squeezes my hand and waits for me to go on. I take a deep breath. “How can I be so … happy? It doesn’t feel right.”

“It doesn’t?” he asks, his voice like velvet.

“No,” I admit, my own voice breathy, like an old-school film star’s. “It does feel right. But it shouldn’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because how can I be happy when Marcus is in a coma? When we don’t know if he’ll wake up?”

Aaron turns toward me and his hand that isn’t holding mine comes and pushes my hair off my face, caresses my cheek. “Wing, Marcus will wake up,” he says with such conviction that it must be true. “He has to. He will. And when he does, he wouldn’t want to hear that you’ve been moping around, crying all day long. He’d want to know you’ve been living. Wing, all Marcus ever wanted was for you to be happy.”

“Even if it’s with you?”

Aaron’s eyes are shining. “I hope so,” he says. “Because I know Marcus wants me to be happy too. And hell, if we’re happy together, well, that should, like … multiply the happiness.”

Sometime in the past few moments Ghost Marcus has floated up above us. He’s looking down at us with a smile on his face.

“What are you looking at?” says Aaron.

I smile at him and then up at Ghost Marcus, who is fading as quickly as he came, leaving us to be.

“You’re right,” I say. “He’d be happy for us. And he’s going to wake up and he’s going to be happy. I know it.”

“He’s lucky to have you as a sister.” Aaron leans toward me, closing the gap between us.

“He’s lucky to have you as a friend,” I say, and the word lucky feels sour in my mouth, because even though everyone keeps using it about Marcus, saying that he’s lucky to be alive, I still think it would have been luckier if he had never gone out that night at all.

“And I’m so lucky to be here right now,” he says, his voice husky in my ear.

Me too, I’m about to say, but then his lips are on mine.

Our legs are tangled, the sleeping bag is tangled, my hair is tangled, everything is tangled up and still it’s not close enough and I press myself against him and hold onto him like we’re back in the ocean but the tide has come in and we’re drowning and he’s the only thing that will save me.

He’s breathing heavily, like he’s just run a race, and I wonder if I sound the same. He kisses my eyelids and runs his finger down my nose and over my lips and across my jaw and down my neck to my collarbone and then his finger dips lower beneath the loose collar of my sleeping shirt and I stop breathing.

So does he. I know because I can’t feel his chest moving and the sudden silence echoes in my ears.

“Is this OK?” he whispers, so softly, so quietly. And I want it to be. I want it to be OK more than I want anything and my body is screaming yes but I tell it to shush and I blink and try and draw myself out of this fog that I’m in where nothing matters but him.