Page 99 of Zach
He presses his palms together and rotates his hands back and forth, betraying his anxiety. I hurry
to soothe him. “It’s ok. It’s exactly the way it’s supposed to be. You don’t need to worry about it.”
The lines between his brows crease. “Why would you imply I’m worried?”
“Jonas, really? Look at your hands.”
“What about my hands?”
“You do that when you’re anxious. Rub them together like that.”
He looks down at his hands and their motion, then looks back at me, a hard light in his eyes.
“Maybe you don’t know me as well as you think you do. I do not stim just because I’m anxious. I do it
to help me think. Or to help me focus on something. I may have done this while I was anxious in the
past, but it serves many purposes for me now.”
I swallow past the lump in my throat. “Really?” He nods, and I push off the floor, moving to stand
in front of him. “I didn’t know that. It always seemed to be part of a meltdown. I just assumed that the
two went together.”
Jonas stares at my forehead for a minute, processing. “So every time you’ve seen me rub my
hands together over the last decade…”
“I thought you were struggling.”
“And you tried to make it better.”
I nod, and he frowns, dropping his hands and pacing away from me to the mirrored wall. I follow,
standing next to him as we study our reflections, him in his tight black shorts, bare chest on display,
me in my track pants and t-shirt. His hair is all over the place, as usual, probably forgetting his last
barber appointment. We’re nearly the same height, with dark hair and eyes, bodies strong. It’s obvious
to anyone who looks that we’re brothers.
“When I look in the mirror,” Jonas says, “I am proud of who I am. I see a strong, capable man.”
His gaze shifts to me in the mirror. “When I look at you. I see my brother. My best friend.” His lips
tighten. “When you look at me, you see a child. The child I used to be. The one that struggled to
function in the world. The one who needed you to stand between him and all the danger and
distraction.”
His eyes are challenging, and I can’t hold his gaze, dropping my eyes to the blue mat we’re
standing on. I blink quickly and take a deep breath. He just called me out and shined a big fucking
spotlight on our entire relationship.
