Author's Note: Thank you again for the reviews! I feel I should say this every time because it really is flattering that you guys do this. I know that it takes a minute to actually log in, pull up the screen, think of what you want to say, and submit it. It really does mean a lot to me. Special thanks to Lady Chronic because her input helped me realize that I needed to have Artie explain his reasons for being so ~secretive~. I will do my best to answer those questions! And you are right, my Artie(s) have lots of secrets. ;)
... And now, for something a little happier.
When Artie managed to regain composure, he caught Tina offguard by asking her if she wanted to see pictures of him and Faith together. In the four years that she'd known him, Tina had never seen any pictures of Artie before he was in a wheelchair. She'd always assumed that the Abrams kept the old pictures put away for his sake. She had just assumed, wrongly it seemed, that Artie didn't want to look at old pictures from before the accident because it was too painful to recall what it was like when he could walk.
The old photo albums were kept in the guest bedroom, and Artie needed Tina's help getting them down from the top of the closet. There were seven thick, heavy albums, which according to Artie, spanned from his parents' first year of marriage to the beginning of second grade for he and Faith. Tina balanced on her tip-toes to reach them and as she piled the albums into Artie's lap, she couldn't help but wonder about something. "Artie, don't get me wrong, I do want to see these photos. But why are you showing them to me now?"
Artie shrugged, playing absently with the bandage the way he usually fidgeted with his yellow bike gloves. "Same reason I got the tattoo today," he mumbled. "I'm just tired of pretending she never existed. I want to talk about Faith, remember the good things." He took another shaky breath and looked up at Tina. "And since I care about you so much, Tee, you're the perfect person for me to share her with first."
Tina perched herself on the bed in the guest room and reached out to give his hand a squeeze. "And I'd love for you to tell me about her," she told him. "I wish I could have known her."
"She'd have liked you, Tee," he said, smiling thoughtfully. "I can imagine the two of you as friends. And she would have probably told you that you were too good for her dorky brother. She said that one time when this girl my first grade class made me a constructive paper heart for Valentine's Day. Tiffany Anderson, the prettiest girl in my class, gave me a heart with glitter all over it, and Faith totally ruined it for me."
Tina laughed appreciatively at the story, and Artie laughed as well. He opened up one of the comparatively newer albums on the top of the stack in his lap and flipped through until he found a picture. "Here we are on the first day of second grade," he said, pointing out a set of pictures. "We went to private school with uniforms and everything. I liked the uniforms, but Faith hated them."
The twins stood in front of an average, one-story house and smiled for the camera. Artie had his arm around his sister, smirking proudly, and her mouth was wide open as though she had just been laughing at something out of the picture. They were dressed in matching navy blue polo shirts. He wore khaki pants and she had on a khaki skort with navy blue knee socks. They each carried matching green lunch boxes. Artie commented that Faith was going to get a pink one, but changed her mind and got green like Artie. She and Artie looked like they could have been identical twins -- if identical twins could be different genders. Her long brown hair, worn in braided pigtails, was the only distinguishing feature.
"I doubt we would look that similar today," he commented, as she studied the photograph. "Faith didn't particularly like being told that she looked like me because, according to her, that had to mean that she looked like a boy." He chuckled. "I'm fairly sure she would have grown out of that. And I think about it a lot, about what she would look like... act like..."
Tina smiled sympathetically. "She's beautiful," she told him. "Show me more, please?" Artie nodded, putting the albums on the floor. He slid himself out of his wheelchair and onto the floor, patting the carpet next to him. Tina climbed down off the bed and settled herself beside him.
They spent the next hour going through all of the albums, starting with the earliest pictures and working their way through the years. Faith and Artie were very well documented children. They were born three weeks early, which wasn't unusal for twins. Faith had been born first, something she always liked to rub in Artie's face. She was also bigger than Artie and more robust from the beginning. Artie had to be on a ventilator for a few days at first, whereas Faith's lungs allowed her to be the loudest crier in the nursery. As they grew into toddlers, Faith continued to be the leader and the more dominant personality of the twins. Artie, always the accommodating one, was pictured playing dress-up and tea party with her in multiple photos.
"Kurt has nothing on me," Artie bragged. "He says he was wearing heels by three? Well here I am, playing with dolls with my sister at two. And the worst part is that I look happy about it. It's kind of remarkable that I'm not gay, huh?"
Tina snickered. "Remarkable."
There were so many birthday parties, Christmases, and vacations to look through and talk about. On the first day of kindergarten, the two looked less confident in their navy blue and khaki uniforms. They were holding hands and only Faith was smiling. Artie was rubbing his eyes and looking miserable in the picture. "I cried all morning about going to school. I was scared to ride the bus," he reminisced. They had been to Disneyland when they were six, and Artie remembered Faith being the scared one then, freaked out by a bad experience on Space Mountain. "She hated rollercoasters after that, but I loved them."
Artie looked happy as he told Tina about Faith, explaining almost every picture as they flipped through the albums. But as Tina watched the twins age through pictures, she noticed Artie's expression beginning to darken. He began making fewer comments on the pictures. Finally, he reached the last page of the last album. The twins were pictured in Halloween costumes. By age eight, they were beginning to grow out of looking identical. Their costumes couldn't have been more different. Faith was a ballet dancer, and Artie was Spiderman. The two were shown holding out matching Jack-O-Lantern buckets.
"It's hard to believe that she was gone less than two weeks later," Artie whispered, transfixed by the picture. He traced the image of Faith with his index finger, and Tina was sure that he was reliving the memory in that picture, one of the last happy memories he had with his sister. He drew in a deep breath and shut the album.
"We-we have to go," he said, his eyes searching the room and landing on a digital alarm clock by the bed. "We have dress rehearsal in twenty minutes. I, um, I guess I can see what this looks like now, huh?" He winced slightly as he tugged at the bandage. The freshly-inked script on his wrist was swollen and bruised, but it looked like the tattoo artist had done a nice job. A small smile played on his lips. "I like it."
"People are going to ask you about it," Tina felt obliged to point out."You do know that, right? I, uh, told Mercedes and Kurt what you were doing today. So they'll probably be the first ones who want to see it. Are you ready to talk about her?"
Artie contemplated what Tina had said for a moment, then flipped the last album open again. He pulled out the picture from Halloween. "I'm ready," he said, sounding more confident now. "The anniversary of her death is making me realize how much I need to keep her memory alive. My parents might be angry when they see this, though, I don't know..." He glanced down at his wrist again, tracing the fresh ink on his skin.
"Angry? Why do you think they'll be angry?"
"Mom walked out of that accident with nothing other than whiplash," Artie explained. "Dad wasn't even with us in the car. Even though the accident wasn't even Mom's fault, she blames herself. And even though Dad couldn't have known what was going to happen that day, he blames himself for not being there. And I kind of... I kind of blame myself for something, too."
Tina furrowed her brow. "You blame yourself?"
"Young kids aren't supposed to ride in the front seat, you know," he went on, glancing at the picture in his hand again and looking away just as quickly. "But for Faith and I, it was a priviledge. We played Rock, Paper, Scissors for it. You know, the game?" Artie chuckled at this, but it was a bitter laugh. "And well, I can't help but think sometimes... if I had thrown rock instead of paper, it would have been me in the front seat that day." His tone changed suddenly, and he looked Tina straight in the eye. ""So if I had been sitting up front, then I'd be dead and Faith would be alive today, probably sitting in a wheelchair and telling someone about me."
"Artie... you can't," Tina sputtered. "It... it doesn't work that way, fate. Your family shouldn't try to take the blame for what happened. It just happened. You have to try and think about things differently. Don't blame yourself for living, Artie."
"But I was her brother, I was supposed to protect her." He clutched his wrist and brought it to his heart, closing his eyes. "I can't cry right now," he said, through clenched teeth as he struggled to reign in control of his emotions. "We have rehearsal and, at this rate, we're going to be late." Artie took a few deep breaths. He had better control over his emotions than Tina. She had been on the verge of tears again herself, and they still threatened to spill over at any moment.
"Are you gonna be okay?" she whispered.
Artie pulled himself up into his chair, still holding on to the picture. "I'm gonna try."