Chapter Text
Aaron wasn't sure what had possessed him to agree to drive with Andrew. Maybe it was laziness. Maybe it was morbid curiosity. Maybe he hadn't believed either of them would actually go through with it.
The car ride from the stadium had been silent, naturally. Not the comfortable kind of silence you get with someone you trust, but the sharp, brittle kind that builds in your chest like pressure in a fault like. Andrew hadn't said a word the whole way there. He'd parked without looking at Aaron, climbed out, and walked into the building like it was a dentist appointment. Like it didn't matter. Like Aaron didn't exist.
Aaron stayed in the car for ten full minutes.
The air inside was stale and too warm, sun filtering through the windshield in a way that made his skin itch. He sat with his hands clenched in his lap, staring at the brick exterior of Betsy's office like it might disappear if he glared hard enough. His throat felt tight. His knee bounced, jittery and unsteady, and he hated how much it looked like nerves.
Eventually, the heat got to him. That, or the mounting stress.
He shoved the door open and stepped out onto the pavement. The office loomed ahead like something out of a shitty indie film with its sterile landscaping, a single tree with more dead branches than leaves, a blank plaque beside the door that said B. Dobson, PhD.
He didn't knock. Just walked in and hoped he wasn't about to do something he'd regret.
The door clicked shut behind him with a finality that made Aaron’s stomach twist. Andrew was already there, of course, slouched against the far end of the couch like he’d been waiting for hours instead of minutes. His brother’s attention was fixed on the wall of books across from him, head tilted at that particular angle that meant he was cataloguing titles or memorizing spines or doing whatever the hell Andrew did when he wanted to pretend the rest of the world didn’t exist.
Aaron stopped just inside the doorway, waiting for some kind of acknowledgement. A glance. A nod. Even one of Andrew’s trademark flat stares would be something. But Andrew didn’t move, didn’t shift, didn’t give any indication that he’d noticed Aaron’s arrival at all.
Just like always, Aaron thought, his hands curling tighter in his pockets. Always acting like this doesn’t matter, like he’s already three steps ahead of everyone else.
The familiar burn of irritation spread through Aaron’s chest. It was the same feeling he’d carried since he was a kid. That sense of being deliberately ignored, systematically dismissed. Andrew had perfected the art of making Aaron feel invisible while somehow still managing to control every situation they found themselves in.
“Aaron, Andrew.” Betsy’s voice cut through the silence, calm and measured in that way that probably worked on other people but just made Aaron want to leave. She was already settled in her chair, hands folded in her lap, watching them both with the kind of patient attention that felt like being studied under a microscope. “Thank you for coming.”
Aaron didn’t respond. Neither did Andrew.
“Can I get either of you some water? Tea? Cocoa?” Betsy asked, gesturing toward a small table with bottles and plastic cups.
“No.” The word came out sharper than Aaron intended, but he didn’t bother softening it. He wasn’t here to make this easy for anyone.
Andrew said nothing at all, which somehow felt like a louder rejection than Aaron’s refusal.
Aaron moved to the other end of the couch, as far from Andrew as the furniture would allow. The cushions were too soft, making him feel like he was sinking, and the whole room smelled like vanilla candles and whatever cleaning products they used on the floor. It was supposed to be soothing, probably, but it just made Aaron feel claustrophobic.
Betsy waited, letting the silence stretch until it became uncomfortable. Aaron knew that people considered her some kind of miracle worker. He even knew that she’d played an important role in getting Andrew off the medication, but that just made him doubt her even more. Like she’d somehow managed to crack open Andrew’s skull and rearrange the broken pieces inside? Doubtful.
Looking at his brother now, Aaron couldn’t see much evidence of progress.
“Before we begin,” Betsy said, folding her hands in her lap. “I want to establish some ground rules.”
Aaron shifted against the couch cushions, already annoyed by the formal tone. This was exactly the kind of therapeutic bullshit he’d been expecting.
“This isn’t about forcing you to reconcile,” she continued. “It’s not about forgiveness or becoming friends. Those things may happen eventually, but they’re not the goal here.”
Andrew’s posture didn’t change. He stayed slumped against his end of the couch, staring at the bookshelf like the titles held secrets worth memorizing. Aaron wondered if his brother was even listening, or if this was just another performance of calculated indifference.
“You don’t have to speak,” Betsy said, glancing between them, “but you can’t interrupt each other. I won’t ask you to like each other, but I will ask you to tell the truth.”
Aaron almost laughed. Truth. She wanted truth from two people who had built their entire relationship on silence and avoidance. She expected honesty when Andrew wouldn’t even look at him, when every interaction between them lately felt like navigating a minefield of old resentments and unspoken grievances.
He didn’t say any of that, though. Instead, he shrugged and crossed his arms, letting his gaze drop to a worn spot on the rug near his feet. The pattern was some kind of geometric design in muted blues and grays, probably chosen because it was color theory or whatever. It just looked tired to Aaron, like everything else in this office.
“The floor is open to both of you,” Betsy said. “This is your time.”
More silence. Aaron counted the seconds in his head, listening to the hum of the air conditioning and the distant sound of traffic outside. Somewhere down the hall, a door opened and closed. Normal sounds of a normal building where normal people did normal things, unlike whatever this was supposed to be.
Andrew still hadn’t moved. Still hadn’t acknowledged that Aaron existed in the same room, breathing the same recycled air. It was impressive, really, how thoroughly his brother could ignore him while sitting less than six feet away.
“What brought you both here today?” Betsy asked when it became clear neither of them was going to volunteer anything.
Aaron stared at the rug and felt his thoughts spiral before he could stop them. He wasn’t here because he wanted to be. He was here because Katelyn had cornered him three days ago in the library with that look she got when she’d made up her mind about something.
I’m tired of watching you carry this around like it doesn’t bother you, she’d said, and Aaron had wanted to tell her that some things were meant to be heavy. That some distances were supposed to stay unbridged.
But then she’d mentioned Neil fucking Josten and his theories, and Aaron’s jaw had locked so hard he thought his teeth might crack.
Josten, who always found a way to stick his nose in places it didn’t belong. Josten, who had apparently suggested that maybe Aaron and Andrew should try to talk things out. Like it was that simple. Like several years of silence could be fixed with an hour on Betsy’s couch.
The worst part was that Andrew had apparently listened. Andrew, who ignored ninety percent of what people said to him, who treated most human interaction like an inconvenience he had to tolerate. But Josten opens his mouth and suddenly Andrew is willing to sit with his brother in therapy and pretend this might accomplish something.
It was insulting, honestly. He didn’t understand how that had happened, how the striker had managed to become someone whose opinion Andrew actually valued. Aaron didn’t want to think about why that bothered him more than it should, why the idea of Andrew listening to Neil Josten felt like another door slamming shut.
He glanced at Betsy, taking in her patient expression and the way she seemed perfectly comfortable with their silence. She probably had a soft spot for Josten too, even though he didn’t even do therapy. Because fucking everyone did. Josten with his tragic backstory and his smart mouth and his ability to make Andrew actually care about something, who’d finally done what years of medication and therapy hadn’t managed. The golden boy who’d saved them all just by existing.
It made Aaron’s stomach churn.
Somewhere under all of this was a bitterness he couldn’t name, something that tasted like copper and felt like swallowing glass. It sat in his chest next to all the other things he didn’t want to examine too closely, all the ways he’d been checklisting his own irrelevance for years.
Betsy tried again. “What would make this session feel worth your time?”
Aaron snorted before he could stop himself. The sound came out harsh in the quiet room. “Getting to leave.”
“Then leave.” Andrew’s response was immediate, flat as concrete. No inflection. No heat. Just three words delivered with the kind of crushing indifference that made Aaron dizzy. It wasn’t even said with venom. Just apathy. That made it worse somehow. At least anger would have meant Andrew felt something about him being here.
The dismissal sat in his throat, sharp and burning. Of course Andrew would make it that simple. Of course he’d reduce everything to Aaron’s inability to commit, to follow through, to be worth the effort.
Betsy didn’t scold them. Didn’t even blink. She just nodded like she’d expected exactly this kind of exchange, which she probably had. “Let me try a different approach,” she said, shifting in her chair. “What’s one thing you’d want the other person to understand about you?”
The question hung. What did he want Andrew to understand? That he was tired of being treated like a problem to be managed? That he’d spent long enough feeling like a pale imitation of someone who barely noticed his existence? That sometimes he looked at his brother and felt like he was staring at a stranger wearing his face?
None of that seemed like something he could say out loud. But he’d promised Katelyn he’d try .
“I don’t think there’s anything worth understanding,” Aaron said finally. The words tasted bitter. “Nothing that isn’t going to piss me off.”
Andrew said nothing at all. He’d perfected that particular weapon years ago—the ability to make his silence feel louder than screaming. Aaron could feel it pressing against him from across the couch.
“Andrew,” Betsy said gently, “is there anything you’d like to share?”
Andrew’s gaze stayed fixed on the bookshelf. His breathing didn’t change. If Aaron hadn’t known better, he might have thought his brother had fallen asleep with his eyes open. But Aaron did know better.
“Sometimes,” Betsy hummed, “it helps to start with smaller observations. Things you’ve noticed about each other, even if you haven’t talked about them.”
Observations. Like they were specimens in a lab. Like there was something scientific about the way Andrew could make Aaron feel invisible while somehow still managing to control every room he walked into.
“He doesn’t want to be here,” Aaron said, because it was obvious and safe and wouldn’t require him to dig any deeper. “Neither do I.”
“Yet you both came,” Betsy pointed out.
Aaron shrugged. “I was asked to.” The admission felt like giving up ground he couldn’t afford to lose, but it was better than explaining the real thing.
“It’s always a personal choice to show up,” she said. “Just as much as you both have the choice to involve each other in your lives or not.”
The words hit Aaron sideways, dragging him somewhere he didn’t want to go. Choice. Like everything that had happened in their lives had been some kind of careful decision instead of a series of disasters neither of them had asked for.
His mind slipped—unwillingly—back to sixteen. High school. The pills burning a hole in his jacket pocket, rattling when he walked. He could still taste the metallic edge of whatever he’d taken that afternoon, something new from a dealer who’d promised it would make everything quiet for a while.
Coming back to the house had been a mistake. He remembered the front door feeling heavier than usual, the hallway stretching too long. Andrew had been sitting at the kitchen table, perfectly still, watching Aaron stumble through the doorway with those eyes that never missed anything. No questions. No lectures.
The next clear memory was waking up on the bathroom floor, shaking so hard his teeth chattered. Dope-sick and locked in from the outside, the handle turning uselessly under his sweaty palm. No yelling through the door. No threats or ultimatums. Just the sound of Andrew’s footsteps in the hallway, walking away and returning without a word.
Food had appeared on plates slid through the gap under the door. Water in plastic bottles left on the sink. Aaron had been too sick to eat most of it, but it kept showing up anyway. Andrew’s version of care, clinical and detached and completely fucking suffocating.
People liked to say Andrew had saved him. Katelyn thought so. Betsy probably thought so too, sitting there with her theories about healing. But Aaron had a hard time seeing it that way.
It wasn’t about saving him. Andrew had cornered him. Taken away his choice, his agency, his right to make his own decisions. Locked him in a bathroom like a rabid animal until the drugs worked their way out of his system. Because that’s what Andrew did. Took control, made decisions for other people, then disappeared behind that wall of indifference when anyone tried to call him on it.
“Aaron?” Betsy’s voice tugged him back to the present. “You look like you went somewhere else for a moment.”
Aaron blinked, realizing his hands had been digging into his thighs. The memory left a sour taste in his mouth. “I’m good.”
“It’s okay if you’re not. Sometimes these conversations bring up things we haven’t thought about in a while.”
Across the couch, Andrew finally moved. Just a slight shift of his shoulders, but Aaron caught it anyway. His brother’s attention was still fixed on the bookshelf, but something in his stance had changed. He was listening now, instead of waiting for this to be over.
“I don’t want to talk about the past,” Aaron said, because the alternative was letting this woman dig deeper into things that were better left buried.
“That’s your choice,” Betsy replied. “But sometimes the past helps us understand the present.”
“He thinks he knows what’s best for everyone,” Aaron said before he could stop himself. The words came out bitter, scraping his throat raw. “Always has.”
Andrew’s head turned slightly. Not enough to look at Aaron directly, but enough to show that he’d heard. His expression stayed blank, but Aaron caught the tiny shift in his breathing.
“Is that how you see it, Andrew?” Betsy asked.
For a long moment, Aaron thought his brother wouldn’t answer. It was more surprising when he finally did.
“No.”
“Care to elaborate?” Betsy asked, and Aaron wondered if that was the tone she used on all her difficult cases.
Andrew’s shoulders lifted in the barest suggestion of a shrug. “I don’t think about what’s best for other people.”
The response was so casual, so perfectly delivered, that Aaron felt something hot and jagged twist in his chest. He stared at his brother’s profile.
“Bullshit.” Aaron spat.
Now Andrew did turn to look at him. Those eyes, identical to Aaron’s own, fixed on his face with the kind of attention that used to make Aaron want to crawl out of his own skin. Still did, if he was being honest with himself.
“Something to say?” Andrew asked, and his voice carried that same deadly calm it always did when he was daring someone to push him.
Aaron’s mouth went dry. This was exactly why he hadn’t wanted to come. Because Andrew could strip him down to nothing with a look, could make him feel like a stupid kid who didn’t understand how the world worked. But Katelyn’s voice echoed in his head— just try —and Aaron found himself leaning forward anyway.
“You locked me in a bathroom for three days,” he said. “You decided I was using, you decided I needed to detox, you decided everything. Without asking. Without even talking to me about it.”
Aaron could still feel the cold tile against his cheek, still remember the way his whole body had shaken as whatever he’d taken worked its way out of his system. Still remembered pounding on the door until his fists were bloody, screaming himself hoarse while Andrew sat somewhere on the other side, unmoved.
“You were going to die,” Andrew said, and he might as well have been commenting on the weather.
“That was my choice to make.”
“No.” Andrew’s voice didn’t change, but something flickered behind his eyes. “It wasn’t.”
Aaron felt his hands curl into fists. “See? You think you know what’s best, and then act like people should be grateful.”
“I don’t want gratitude.”
“Then what do you want?” The question was loud, bouncing off the office walls. His heart was hammering against his ribs, adrenaline flooding his system like he was preparing for a fight.
Andrew stared at him for a long moment. Then he turned back to the bookshelf, dismissing Aaron as completely as if he’d never spoken at all.
Betsy cleared her throat. “Andrew, you mentioned that Aaron’s choice wasn’t his to make. Can you help us understand what you meant by that?”
It took a long time for an answer.
“We were sixteen,” Andrew said finally. Aaron’s eyes darted down to where Andrew’s fingertips had started inching towards his armbands. “Sixteen-year-olds shouldn’t get to choose to die.”
Aaron felt his chest constrict, air becoming harder to pull into his lungs. Because Andrew wasn’t wrong, exactly. He had been sixteen. He had been spiraling, taking whatever he could get his hands on just to make the noise in his head stop for a while.
But that didn’t make it Andrew’s decision to make.
"I wasn't trying to die," Aaron said, hating how defensive he sounded. "I was trying to—"
"What?" Andrew turned to look at him again, and this time there was more than passing interest in his expression. "You were trying to what?"
Aaron couldn't explain the way the pills had made everything quiet, how they'd been the only thing that stopped the constant buzz of anxiety and anger. Couldn't explain how it had felt to finally have something that was just his, even if it was destroying him.
"Forget," he said instead, because it was simpler.
"Forget what?"
Aaron could feel Betsy watching, could sense her notating every word, every pause, every micro-expression. This was exactly what she wanted, he was sure. For them to dig into the messy, complicated history that had brought them here.
But Aaron wasn't ready to give her that satisfaction. Wasn't ready to lay out all the ways he'd felt like a stranger in his own life, all the times he'd looked at Andrew and wondered what it would be like to be that sure of himself, that untouchable.
"Everything," he said finally, and let the word do the work he couldn't.
Andrew didn't do anything drastic, but it was still like he was seeing Aaron clearly for the first time since they'd sat down.
"That's honest," Betsy said quietly. "Thank you for sharing that with us."
Aaron wanted to tell her to keep her thanks. Wanted to stand up and walk out, to prove Andrew right about his inability to see anything through. But he stayed seated, trying to figure out why his chest felt so tight.
The clock on Betsy's desk ticked steadily, marking time that felt both endless and too fast. Aaron wondered how much longer they had to sit here, pretending this conversation might actually accomplish something.
"Andrew," Betsy said, "Aaron shared something vulnerable just now. Is there anything you'd like to respond to?"
Andrew was quiet for so long that Aaron started to think he'd retreated back into his shell of indifference. When he finally spoke, it was quieter than before.
"I remember," he said, and Aaron's head snapped up.
"Remember what?"
"The bathroom floor. You stopped fighting the door after the second day."
Aaron's stomach dropped. He hadn't realized Andrew had been paying that close attention, hadn't known his brother had been listening to his increasingly desperate attempts to get out.
"You brought me food," Aaron said, the admission scraping against his throat.
"You didn't eat most of it."
"I was sick."
"I know."
The simple phrasing hit Aaron harder than he'd expected. Andrew had known. Had known and stayed anyway, had kept bringing food and water even when Aaron was too fucked up to appreciate it.
"Why?" Aaron asked.
Andrew looked at him for a long moment. "Because you're my brother."
"You didn't do it because you cared," Aaron insisted, but the words felt hollow even as they were running from his lips. "You did it because you couldn't stand losing control."
Andrew's fingers stilled against his armband. "Think whatever you want."
The dismissal should have stung, but Aaron found himself studying his brother's face instead, looking for cracks in that perfect mask of indifference. Andrew's breathing had changed, still mostly managed, but shallower somehow. His knuckles were white where they dug into his arms.
"I think," Betsy announced, "this might be a good place to pause for today. You've both shared some difficult truths. That takes courage, even when it doesn't feel like progress."
Courage. Like there was anything brave about sitting in a room hurling accusations at someone who wouldn't even look at him most of the time. Like admitting that he'd maybe been apathetic to the idea of dying when he was sixteen was some kind of breakthrough instead of just another way to make everyone uncomfortable.
"This feels like a starting point," Betsy said, gathering the papers in her lap. "I'd like to see you both again next week, if you're willing."
Andrew was already standing, unfolding from the couch with that fluid grace that made him look dangerous even when he was doing something as mundane as getting up. He didn't glance in Aaron's direction, didn't acknowledge Betsy's words, didn't do anything except walk toward the door like he couldn't wait to be anywhere else.
Aaron hesitated for a second longer, watching his brother's retreating form. Part of him wanted to say something, but what, he didn't know. Some kind of parting shot, maybe, or at least concession of whatever had just happened between them. But Andrew's hand was already on the door handle, and then he was gone, leaving Aaron alone with Betsy and the lingering scent of vanilla.
"Aaron?" Betsy asked, overly cautious. "How are you feeling?"
He stood up, his legs unsteady beneath him. "Like I need to leave."
She nodded. "That's understandable. This was a lot."
Aaron didn't answer. He didn't trust himself to.
The hallway outside felt brighter than it had any right to be. It took his eyes a moment to adjust, and even then, things still looked a little too raw around the edges as he made his way to the parking lot, stopping as soon as the front door shut behind him.
Andrew was gone.
Aaron shouldn't have been surprised. Of course Andrew wouldn't wait. Of course he'd vanish the second the session ended, without so much as a backward glance. The Maserati was missing from the lot, a blank space where the ride should've been. Just empty asphalt and a growing pit in his stomach.
He stood there for a moment, starting at the space like Andrew might appear again. But his brother didn't do reappearances. Andrew did clean breaks and abrupt exits. Aaron took a breath that scraped the inside of his chest and started walking.
Campus wasn't far, fifteen, maybe twenty minutes if he cut through the old residential district, but his legs already ached from tension. The weight of the session hadn't worn off yet, hadn't even started to. He walked with his hands shoved deep in his pockets, shoulders hunched like he could curl inward and disappear. The breeze bit at his cheeks, but it kept him present. Kept him from spiraling.
He didn't let himself think about the session. Not directly. But his thoughts kept looping anyway, tangled strings he couldn't stop pulling.
Sixteen-year-olds shouldn't get to choose to die.
The way Andrew's fingers had drifted towards his armbands. The way his breathing had hitched, just barely. The way he'd said because you're my brother like it was nothing. Like it was everything.
Aaron forced those thoughts down like bile and focused on the sidewalk in front of him.
By the time he made it to campus, the sun was low behind the Fox Tower and his calves were burning. He didn't stop walking. Didn't slow down. Just made a beeline for the library and slipped inside without giving himself time to reconsider.
It was quiet inside, but not silent—soft footfalls, rustling paper, the occasional muted cough. Normal. Grounding. He found Katelyn exactly where he thought she’d be, tucked into her usual corner on the second floor, a biology textbook open in front of her and two highlighters in hand. She was hunched over a page of notes, completely absorbed.
Aaron hesitated in the doorway for just a second too long.
She looked up, caught him in her peripheral, and smiled like nothing was wrong.
“Hey,” she greeted. “You look like you got hit by a truck. Practice that bad?”
Aaron huffed something like a laugh, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Felt like it.”
She pushed the chair next to her out with her foot. “Come suffer with me. We’ve got three chapters to finish before Friday, and I’m already behind.”
He sat without thinking. Without saying anything. Just lowered himself into the chair beside her and stared blankly at her notes until the lines started to blur. Katelyn didn’t ask where he’d been. Didn’t question why he wasn’t wearing his usual expression of practiced indifference. She just handed him a pen and slid her packet halfway across the table like it was any other night.
And for a second, he let himself pretend it was.
He picked up the pen. Scribbled half an answer on the worksheet she’d handed him. Forced himself to match the rhythm of her breathing, steady and even, as she turned a page and leaned into him just slightly. It was comforting. Familiar. Safe.
He told himself it was enough.
Telling her where he'd been would’ve meant dragging her into that mess—into Andrew’s mess—and Aaron wasn’t willing to let her anywhere near that. Not until he knew whether he could stomach walking back into that office again. Not until he figured out whether any of it was worth it. Whether that flicker of something in Andrew’s voice— you were going to die —was real or just another manipulation. Another illusion.
Katelyn passed him a sticky note with a practice quiz question scrawled across it. He wrote down an answer. She smiled when it was right.
The quiet settled again. He didn’t tell Katelyn anything that night. Didn’t explain the silence, didn’t offer an apology, didn’t even mention the therapy. Because if he didn’t say it, it didn’t have to be real. Not yet. And because pretending—just for a little while—that he could still keep those parts of his life separate was the only thing keeping him steady.