Page 103 of Second Alarm
I drive the six blocks to Cal's. I park out front, take the front stairs — the squeaky ones — because Cal isn't supposed to know I'm coming, and because the squeaky stairs are the stairs you take when you're done with any version of sneaking.
I knock, and he opens the door in sweats and a sling and one sock. His eye is a little puffy. He has, I note clinically, not slept. There's a ring of takeout cartons on the kitchen counter behind him.
"Hanna."
"Cal."
"Come in."
"Thanks."
He steps back. Doesn't hug me. Doesn't invite me to sit. Doesn't offer coffee. He closes the door, stands in the middle of his kitchen with his good arm crossed over his bad sling, and looks at me.
"Talk."
"Okay."
"I'm not going to help you. I'm not going to interrupt. I'm not going to finish your sentences or tell you what I'm feeling. You came over to say a thing. Say it."
"Okay."
I take a breath.
"I love him, Cal."
Cal doesn't move.
"I've loved him since the academy and in the second month — I kissed him. He didn't kiss me. I kissed him. And we were together for three months. And then I left him. And it was the worst thing I've ever done."
"Hanna."
"Yeah."
He shakes his head, "Keep going."
"I left him because I thought I couldn't be with him and be your sister. I thought it was a thing I had to choose between. Mom told me I was wrong about that, and I think she's right, I knew she was right even when I was nineteen, because I remember the moment I decided I was going to leave. Iremember thinking, 'I'm telling myself this is for Cal and it isn't for Cal, it's for me, because I'm scared.' I was scared, Cal. Scared of losing you. Scared of losing him. And I was too young to tell anyone that, too young to tell you, too stupid to know that fear was the thing — not Ty, not you, not the rules, not the academy policy. The fear. So, I ran. I went to Portland. I dated a series of men whose only job, I can see now, was to not be Ty. I didn't do what I went there to do. I did the paramedic job, and I was good at it, but I was small, Cal. A small version of myself for ten years. I came home because I couldn't be small anymore. Because Mom was sick. Because you were here. Because Ty was here. Because I wanted to stop running. And then I was home, and I was still running — into a linen closet, in my own kitchen, on the back stairs — but I wasn't leaving, and eventually the running has to stop because you run out of rooms."
"Hanna." He walks around the room and then looks back at me, all while trying to process what I’m telling him.
"I'm here to tell you that I love him. That I've loved him since I was nineteen. That I'm not going to leave him again. That I'm not going to leave Copper Ridge again. That I'm home. And that I'm sorry — specifically sorry — for the years of lying to you about it. Not about loving him. I'm not sorry about loving him, but I am about lying to you. About the years of dinners at Mom's table while you sat across from him and I was lying. About the time you called me in Portland to tell me about your car accident and said you wanted to come visit me and I said no, because I was afraid I'd tell you. About every time you've said 'I miss my sister,' because I've heard you say it and I know I made the version of me that was missing. About every time you came home from the Watershed and wanted to call me and didn't because I was two states away and it was midnight here. I'm sorry about Thanksgiving 2019. About your thirtieth birthday. About the Labor Day you came out and I was a coward about itfor three days and you went home. I'm sorry about all of it, Cal, because you're — you're — "
"Keep going."
"You're the best of us. The best of our family. You've been the best of us since Dad died and you went home every weekend for two years to stay at Mom’s because Mom couldn't be alone, and I saw you do that, Cal, and I've carried it with me, and I've never once not loved you, and I thought if I told you about Ty I'd lose you. Turns out I was wrong about that the whole time. But I believed it the whole time, and the believing is why I did what I did, and I'm sorry."
"Sit down."
"I have one more thing."
"Hanna — "
"One more."
"Okay."
"I love Ty. I'm going to be with him. Whether or not you're speaking to me. I'm not going to run from that anymore. I'm not going to be small anymore. I'm going to be with him in our town, and in our family, and on our crew, and I'm going to do it in public. I'd like you to be my brother while I do it. If you can't be my brother while I do it, I'm still going to do it. I want you to know both things."
Cal doesn't say anything.
