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Aaron sometimes thinks he might be broken. Not in the dramatic, melancholy way that involves draping yourself over the arm of a couch and moaning about all the terrible things that have happened. In the ‘why can’t I feel things like a normal person’ way. In the ‘I go to therapy every two weeks and I don’t think it’s working’ way.
Betsy tells him, during one of their private sessions, that he’s doing remarkably well for someone who went through so much so young. He has a girlfriend he adores, friends who aren’t bound to him by deals, and a slowly healing relationship with his brother. To anyone else, Aaron is actually one of the more self-actualised members of the Foxes. Betsy tells him that, just because the way he shows love is a little different, it doesn’t mean it’s invalid.
Katelyn doesn’t even notice when he gets a little too jealous or a little too protective. He figures she just doesn’t mention it, not wanting to make him feel bad about it, but she never flinches when he bares his teeth at people who try to get too close. If anything, she thinks it’s cute. Aaron stopped doubting the legitimacy of that smile after he’d nearly ripped some guy’s head off and it was still holding strong.
Logically, he knows that he’s doing something right for her, regardless of whether it’s right or not. He knows he loves Katelyn with all his heart, that he’s going to marry her one day, that he’s not sure what he would do with himself if she decides to leave. And she seems just as enthusiastic about him as he is about her, but he can’t help the doubt that tries to worm itself into everything he does for her.
It’s strangely worse now that Andrew knows about her. His brother is somewhat civil, though he still sends warning glances to Katelyn every so often. Aaron hadn’t realised how much of a weight the whole ‘hiding his girlfriend from his twin brother’ had been until Andrew broke the deal for Neil and begrudgingly accepted Katelyn’s existence.
He also hadn’t realised how much he still relies on Andrew’s validation.
Not that it would’ve affected the end result, but if Aaron had introduced Katelyn to Andrew and been rejected, he definitely would’ve been lost for a while. Andrew’s tolerance is another relief Aaron gladly accepts.
But now Katelyn has a full view of his entire life. She gets to see every fucked up part, no filters, and decide if she wants to stay. Aaron thinks it’s insane that she does. He definitely wouldn’t stay if he was given the choice, not if it meant he had to endure subtle death threats and constant suspicion. He loves Katelyn so much and it would kill him if they broke up, but he thinks she deserves way better than this.
Betsy gave him a solution once. He can’t remember if it was during a double session or not, but he does remember Andrew’s frown when he learned about it. Basically, she’d told Aaron that he could finish his studies at Palmetto State and then he could leave. For good.
He could pack his life up, find some place with a decent med school and a decent hospital, get Katelyn, and start his life over without the reminders of all this pain.
It’s not like the suggestion is crazy and impossible and way out there, but still, it had landed like a stone in his chest. Part of him yearns for that so fiercely it hurts. Another, more insistent part reminds him that leaving South Caroline behind would be like leaving part of his soul behind. It doesn’t matter how rotten it is, how it saps life from him at every turn—it’s his soul.
And anyway, he can’t forget the look on Andrew’s face. He’s come to expect the blank version of his own face staring back at him, with the occasional flash of something underneath. It takes some time, but he can read it if he looks really carefully. So the blatant look of disappointment on his brother’s face when Aaron tells him he might take off after college imprints itself in his mind.
It doesn’t take an eidetic memory to remember that disapproval with perfect clarity. If Aaron really thinks about it, really dissects every tiny twitch on Andrew’s face, he’d even say the expression was tinged with fear. But that’s impossible.
The part that doesn’t want to leave is smaller, which should mean it’s quieter, right? It’s not. It screams with every fibre of its being, fights every thought of leaving like possessed thing, tries so hard to stay it makes Aaron dizzy. If he listened to it, he thinks he would crack open Andrew’s ribs and crawl into him, safe and sound. But obviously that’s insane, so he ignores that little voice. He’s not sure Andrew would much appreciate it anyway.
He doesn’t even know why it insists so much on staying close to the one person Aaron’s spent the last few years hating. Andrew has made his life so much harder than it already was. He still hasn’t forgiven him for his mother, still holds a grudge against the deal so easily broken by another boy, still misses the life he could’ve had.
But sometimes he lies awake at night, wondering why he’s so angry about the death of his abuser. Is it some form of Stockhold Syndrome? Some twisted love he still holds for the person who was supposed to love him unconditionally but didn’t? Or is he just angry that his brother risked his life to keep him safe only months after they learned about each other (and is that anger really fear)?
Sometimes he wonders if he hates Andrew’s deals because they might be the only things keeping them together, and not the brotherly bond he’d imagined when learning the existence of his twin. They kill him, these questions. He can never answer them.
Aaron thinks he’s broken because he doesn’t know what love is supposed to feel like. He manages to nod when others talk about butterflies and flushed cheeks, and Katelyn knows he adores her, but he’s pretty sure love isn’t meant to be this raging fire in his chest. He doubts it’s supposed to be this urge he can’t ignore to take his brother and girlfriend and staple himself to their arms so that they won’t leave him.
Betsy tells him that love doesn’t have a specific symptom list he can cross off. He doesn’t believe her. Katelyn tells him that she doesn’t care how Aaron loves her, just that he does. He tries to believe her. Andrew holds onto him just as tight as he does. He believes him.