Mirrored Cuts

Chapter 61

June

As the frost parted to make way for a new season, the tree branches reached out their tendrils and began to caress the other foliage around them, interlocking their fingers for a joyous dance. I began to feel lighter than air. My parents hadn't been in contact for weeks. Everyone in EMS had been avoiding each other, which meant radio silence from that end; a silver lining to everyone hating each other was that there was no new drama to deal with. And it was my brother's birthday. He was turning fourteen. He had called me from school the other day to tell me that he had news: that he was going to tell the family when they came to pick me up from college.

"I want you to be there," he said. "For support."

We both knew what he was talking about, I much more than him.

"I miss hearing your cello, you know, when I fall asleep."

"This awful racket?" I said, running my fingers over the strings of my cello while it rested against my bed.

He didn't laugh. I'll admit, it wasn't a very good joke.

"It will be okay," I said. "Everything will be okay."

And that's probably why it happened. Because you should never say that it's okay. Anytime someone in a movie says "I'll see you later" or "I'll be okay", something terrible happens. You would think I would have learned my lesson.

* * *

My grades turned around. Well, they turned up. Around implies drastic progress. I didn't fail my classes. It was enough to get off of probation and back into the University's lukewarm graces. I vowed to work harder next semester, to keep my involvement with EMS to a minimum. Finn took the credit for my uptick in academic standing. I let him, knowing that I wouldn't always have him there to guide me along. I would have to be able to support myself, something I had too often over the past year felt too weak to do. I sealed closed the old me, shoving my hurricane away breath by breath. I think Finn saw the change because he stopped being as guarded with me, ceased sharpening his questions to a point.

"Do you ever want to talk to someone about it?" John said one day. "I hear it's unhealthy to keep that shit inside."

I sunk back into my memories of my therapist, the one with all the answers, the one who wouldn't say anything.

"I wouldn't know where to begin." I said. It was the truth.

* * *

My parents let Sammy stay with me when they came. "A set of helping hands for finishing the packing process," my mother said. I hadn't packed a single thing. I wanted Sammy to see my room as it was before it got stored in cardboard boxes. "Your father doesn't feel great so we're going to rest at the hotel. He works so hard." How quickly packing me up to leave school had become about him.

Sammy immediately gravitated to the cello and I realized that he was taller than it. I had always teased him that even my instrument was bigger than he was, but there he was, growing like a weed. He plucked a few strings. I don't think he was sure where to start.

"Do you want me to teach you a song?" I said. "Or a scale," I offered when he looked up.

"I think I can play something. I've been filling in for people in orchestra when they get sick."

I nodded, another thing my father would have tried to suppress in his son. It was a miracle Sammy had remained such a gentle soul.

He began to pick out Ode to Joy. He stumbled at first, warming up to it.