“Harlo?”
My throat tightened.
“Elias?”
He crossed the room so quickly that the nurse had to step aside.
“What happened?” he demanded, looking at the IV, the monitors, and the doctor. “Someone told me he needed emergency surgery. What’s happening to my brother?”
The doctor explained the situation.
Elias listened without interrupting, his jaw tightening with every word.
When the doctor finished, Elias turned toward me.
“Why didn’t you call me?”
I couldn’t answer.
He looked at the nurse.
“Did he call our parents?”
She hesitated.
“We attempted to contact both numbers he provided. Neither phone was available.”
Elias went completely still.
Then he looked at me again.
“Both of them?”
I nodded weakly.
For a second, something passed through his face. It wasn’t surprise.
It was recognition.
As if he had expected this moment long before I did.
He pulled a chair beside my bed and took my hand.
“Listen to me, Har. You’re going to get through this. Do you understand?”
I tried to smile.
“I didn’t think you’d come.”
His expression crumpled.
He looked away for a moment, swallowing hard.
“Of course I came.”
“But after everything—”
“Stop.”
His voice cracked on the word.
“You’re my little brother. Whatever happened between us, that never changed.”
I began to cry.
Not because of the pain.
Because I had spent two years convincing myself that Elias was the person who had abandoned our family.
Yet when I was lying helpless in a hospital bed, he was the only one who had come.
He wiped a tear from my cheek with his thumb.
“Don’t waste your strength apologizing,” he whispered. “Just get through the surgery. We’ll talk afterward.”
The nurse returned to prepare me for the operating room.
Elias stood, but he didn’t release my hand until the orderly began moving my bed.
“Will you be here when I wake up?” I asked.
He looked almost offended by the question.
“I’ll be right here.”
The doors to the operating area opened.
Just before they closed behind me, I saw him standing in the corridor, watching as they wheeled me away.
For the first time that afternoon, I felt safe.
And for the first time in two years, I wondered whether everything my parents had told me about my brother had been a lie.
The surgery lasted a little over an hour.
My appendix had not yet ruptured, but the surgeon later explained that it had been close. If I had waited much longer, the situation could have become far more dangerous.
When I woke in recovery, my mouth was dry, my abdomen ached, and my thoughts moved slowly through the fog of anesthesia.
But one question cut through everything.
“Elias?”
A nurse smiled.
“Your brother is waiting. He’s been asking about you every few minutes.”
I closed my eyes in relief.
A little later, they moved me to a private room.
Elias was sitting beside the window with two cups of coffee, neither of which appeared to have been touched.
When he saw me awake, he stood immediately.
“Hey, sleepyhead.”
It was such an ordinary thing to say.
Exactly the sort of thing he would have said when we were younger, after I fell asleep during a movie or took a nap on the living room couch.
I tried to laugh, but the movement hurt.
“Don’t make me laugh.”
“Then stop looking so ridiculous.”
For a moment, we both smiled.
Then the silence returned.
Two years of silence.
Two years of missed birthdays, unanswered messages, and holidays spent pretending our family was complete.
Finally, I whispered, “I’m sorry.”
Elias sat down.
“Har—”
“No. Let me say it.”
My eyes filled with tears.
“I believed them. I saw the documents, and I believed them without asking you what happened. You tried to explain, and I wouldn’t even listen.”
Elias looked at the floor.
“I was angry with you for a long time.”
“I know.”
“But I was angrier with myself.”
I frowned. “Why?”
“Because I thought that if I explained everything one more time, you’d understand. I thought I could find the right words to make you believe me.”
He looked at me.
“Then I realized you didn’t want to hear the truth. You wanted to believe the people who made you feel safe.”
His words hurt because they were true.
“I was wrong,” I whispered.
“Yes, you were.”
He didn’t soften the answer.
And somehow, I appreciated that.
“But you’re here now,” he continued. “We can’t change what happened. We can only decide what happens next.”
I studied his face.
“Did you ever hate me?”
Elias was quiet for several seconds.
“No.”
“Not even a little?”
“I hated the situation. I hated what Dad said about me. I hated watching Mom cry over something I hadn’t done. And I hated that you wouldn’t look me in the eye.”
He paused.
“But I never hated you.”
I turned toward the window because I couldn’t bear for him to see me cry again.
Then I remembered something.
“Elias, how did you know I was here?”
He leaned back in his chair.
“Your coworker called me.”
“Reeve?”
He nodded.
“She found my number in your old emergency contact information. She said your parents weren’t answering and that the doctors needed someone to be there.”