Page 74 of Coming Home

"I love you," he whispered.

"I love you," I wept back, pulling him down until there was no space left between us. "I love you, I love you, I love you."

And we held each other as the California morning sun flooded through the windows, gold, warm, and absolute. For the first time in either of our turbulent lives, neither of us was running. Neither of us was hiding from a diagnosis, or trying to perform for an audience that wasn't there.

We were just two people who had finally stopped erasing themselves.

Learning, at long last, how to live instead.

Epilogue

RALPH

A year later, and the world was loud with color.

I'd forgotten how greedy the eyes get after they've been starving.

How a single, vibrant shade of blue can feel like a full meal. Standing at the edge of the water on this private strip of white sand Theo had booked for us in Belize, I just let my eyes eat.

The turquoise of the Caribbean looked almost artificial.

The sand under my bare feet was blindingly white. The palms overhead were an impossible, deep green, bending under a sky so clean it made California's overcast haze feel like a distant memory. I could see the individual ripples in the shallows catching the light. I could see a pelican diving two hundred meters out.

And across the beach, I could see the faint constellation of freckles scattered across Emma's shoulders.

A year ago, I was trapped in a hospital bed, staring into an iron void. Now, Eydie Gormé was singing "Sabor a Mí" from the speakers by our cooler. The Spanish floated across the water, blending into the steady rhythm of the surf. Our playlist. Still ours. Always ours.

The Olympics had come and gone without me. Theo had called right after the final relay, said nothing for ten heavy seconds, and then muttered.

"You good, man?"

"Yeah," I'd told him, and for the first time in my life, I wasn't lying to my brother. "I'm good."

The truth was, the water never really left me. It just changed shape. I still swam every single day, but the clock on the wall was just decoration now. I didn't need a podium or a piece of metal to tell me who I was anymore.

We'd also discovered, during a spectacularly awkward dinner with Theo and Athena, that Emma and I had been seeing the same therapist for months.

Camilla.

Emma had been sitting in the exact same leather chair I vacated every Wednesday afternoon.

She'd confronted Camilla about it and spent the whole evening pacing our kitchen, indignant, waving a mug of tea she kept forgetting to drink.

"I asked her flat out what you say about me," Emma had told me, her eyes flashing.

I'd chuckled, leaning against the counter. "You did not."

"I did. And she just sat there with that classic therapist face—the one where she looks like she's doing complex math on the inside—and asked if we felt we were similar."

"That's a deflection, Em."

"Exactly! I told her, 'Camilla, that is a deflection.' Then I asked if you'd been asking about me, and she gave me this tiny smile and said she couldn't confirm or deny. Which is therapist for yes."

"You could ask me everything you want to know, Em," I'd told her, grinning.

It was hypocritical.

I'd been asking Camilla since session two what Emma said about me. Camilla had the poker face of a career diplomat.