“You’re…not bad,” I say, shrugging for emphasis. “I mean, you’re kind of big and gangly. And I bet your knees crackle and pop from catching, so you’re probably going to suffer from massive arthritis. But, you’re all right.”

He pushes up my feet without warning, tipping me over on my back. “Damn, and here Ty and I thought Paige was the bitchy one,” he jokes.

“Nope. It was I all along. In fact, this isn’t even what I look like. If I ripped off this layer of skin, underneath I would smell like sparkly body spray, and my skin would glitter, and my hair would feel like wire from all of the product I put in it.”

“Wow! Now that’s what I was really hoping you looked like. Go on, baby, rip it off. Show me the real you,” he says, laughing and reaching for my hand to pull me back up to sitting. This time, though, he leaves his fingertips on mine, shifting his touch from one finger to the next, like he’s not sure if it’s a good idea to hold onto me too tightly.

“You don’t want to see the real me,” I swallow, and look away.

“Sure I do,” he says, and I can feel his eyes on me. They’re burning, and I know I can’t wait this one out.

“Tell me about Ty. How’d he get hurt?” His hand drops from mine, and he grips both sides of the bench underneath him, lifting his entire body up a few inches from the seat, like a gymnast. He lets out a big breath when he rests his arms again, folding his hands together in his lap. His gaze stays there the entire time.

“Ty was sixteen. I was twelve. We were at this big lake, near New Orleans. My grandparents owned some land there. Ty taught me to swim in that lake when we were real little. I mean, that place was like a second home. So many memories.”

Watching him remember his youth is incredible. The way he talks about his brother just gushes with affection, and I’m envious he has something in his life that feels like that.

“Well, this one year, we were both feeling a little adventurous. There was this big ledge that I had watched some teenagers jump off of the year before, and the entire year after, all I did was talk about that ledge to my brother, begging him and making him promise to take me back there so we could jump off together. Only, when we climbed up on the ledge, I got really scared. I’m not really good at heights, and I started crying. Now, keep in mind, while twelve sounds kind of young to you right now, it’s not that young for a boy who’s crying. I felt like a loser, and my brother felt bad for me, so he said he’d go first and show me how easy it was. He, uh…he didn’t come back up.”

I’m covering my mouth because I don’t want Nate to see the complete reaction on my face. I know I can’t mask my eyes, and I can feel the tears pooling already, threatening to fall down my face.

“He injured his L2 and L3. No, I’ll be blunt—he smashed them to pieces. I ran down the hill and screamed bloody murder. A few fishermen heard me and helped me pull him out. Getting to the hospital is all one giant blur, and I remember my thinking the entire time that my parents hated me. I hated me. Because I made my brother do something so stupid.”

“But it wasn’t your fault,” I say, reaching for his hand on instinct. His breath pauses when my fingertips touch him, and he hooks his fingers into mine a little more this time.

“I know that now. Ty snapped me out of it pretty quickly. You may have noticed, my brother doesn’t really do pity,” he says, his eyes still watching our hands as they fight to hold on harder to one another.

“You’re brother is pretty awesome,” I say, waiting for his eyelashes to flick up and for his gaze to reach mine. But he keeps his eyes down, at our hands.

“Yeah, he is. I’m good at baseball because of him. He always wanted to play professionally, or at least in college. When he couldn’t anymore, I made it my dream. I wanted to get here for him,” he says, a faint smile pulling up at the corner of his mouth.

“I can’t wait to see you play,” I say, and his eyes finally meet mine, piercing my heart the second they do.

“You can come to practice. You know…if you want. Anytime,” he looks down again, biting at his lip. I can tell he’s embarrassed about asking me to come.

“I will,” I say, and his smile grows bigger and he nods.

“Good, that’s settled then.” Nate’s expression starts to change after that; soon his brow furrows, and he’s chewing at the inside of his cheek. “I have to ask you something. But I’m scared of your answer.”

My heartbeat stops completely when he says this. I know what he’s going to ask, and I know I have to start to let my story out for others to hear. If I ever want friends—real friends—the kind that help you heal, then they need to see every part of me. “You want to know about Josh,” I say, and his fingers stop moving with mine, his hand becoming strong and rigid. Nate just nods once and looks up at me, his mouth in a tight, flat line.