The Right Fit

Chapter 45

Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.

Marc moaned, lying crumpled on the upside down hood of the car. His face was covered in blood. “Mes jambes…I can’t feel my legs.”

Antony was upside down, still buckled in his seat, his eyes bursting with pressure. He wasn’t sure how he managed to get them both out, but Antony dragged his screaming brother from the minivan and partway up the slope. A haphazard trail of red stained the pristine snow. At the top of the steep embankment above them, a flash of lights slowed, stopped, and then voices called out to them.

“Ici! Ici! Down here!” Antony had Marc in his arms, both of them covered in blood.

“I can’t feel my legs,” Marc said, starting to shiver. “Tu vas bien. You’ll be okay. Hold on.” Antony

had his eyes trained on the silhouettes making their way down the hill.

“No,” Marc grabbed Antony’s collar and pulled him closer. “I was driving. Tell them I was driving.”

“Stop it!” Antony started to cry. “You’re all right.” Marc tilted his head back and looked at the sky. “I can’t feel my legs,” he repeated. “Mes jambes…mes

jambes.”

Antony held him closer, letting Marc scream into his chest, his muscles racked with shaking.

The police and the paramedics arrived at the same time. Marc spoke first. “C’est moi. I was driving,” he said between gritted teeth, trying to hold back the tears. Even amid the disorder and panic, he spoke clearly, making sure the police heard him. Antony held a small gauze to the cut on his forehead.

As he watched his brother’s body being strapped to a flat board with a neck brace in place, the first inkling life was never going to be the same slammed into Antony as violent and definite as the crash itself.

A blackness crept in from the periphery.

“Antony!” A thudding grew louder. “Open the door!”

The clock on the dashboard was too blurry to read. Marc pounded on the outside of the door, red faced and breathing hard.

With a groan, Antony grabbed the keys and opened the door.

Marc wheeled back as he stepped out. “Qu’est ce qui c’est passé? What happened?” he asked. “You were out cold.”

“Non, just weak.” Antony squinted at his watch.

He’d been in the car for ten minutes.

The blotching pattern traveled up Marc’s neck. “You need hospital. Get checked.”

“I need to see Maxine.” Antony pushed by his brother.

“She just left.”

“She was here? Why did she leave?”

Marc dropped his gaze to Antony’s shoulder. “To look for you.”

Ignoring his brother, Antony made his way back up to their apartment. He picked up the phone, still on the hall table. She answered on the first ring.

“Where are you?” the quiver in her voice surprised him.

“Uh, car wouldn’t start. Marc said you left. Where are you?”

“In a cab in the middle of a snow storm.”

Marc wheeled past him into the kitchen. He began to put away the dishes that had been laid out.

Maxine started to cry softly into the phone. “He told me things…”

Antony’s hard gaze focused on his brother.

“He told me you use me before every game for luck—”

He closed his eyes. “Please, I need to see you.” “—and that you were drinking the night of Marc’s

accident and that you were the driver.” She was quiet for what seemed like a hundred heartbeats then she asked, “Is that true?”

“Je t’en supplie,” he begged again. “Come back.

Let’s not do this over phone.”

There was another pause. “I was hoping you’d say he was lying. That he’s got a personality disorder or something.” The quivering determination in her tone broke his heart. “He’s lying, right? Please tell me he’s lying.”

He swallowed hard. “Non, pas exactement. Please, I beg you…je t’en supplie!” An ache had begun to grow inside his chest. “I need to see you.”

“No.” She took a few gulps of air then sniffed. “I’m staying with Carmine. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

After she hung up, Antony charged down the hallway and slammed the door to his bedroom. The picture of him and Marc in their hockey jerseys, taken a few days before the accident, sat on his dresser mocking him. It could have been a picture of two strangers. Antony had no idea what the hell happened to those brothers.

There was a knock at the door. “Maybe call cab and go to emergency?” Marc suggested.

A surge of frustrated anger exploded from Antony. He picked up the photo and heaved it at the door. The glass shattered, making a terrific sound. Antony breathed through his nose, wanting to punch the wall as well. There was a shift outside and then Marc moved away, the wheels barely making a sound on the carpet.