Jack had found him sitting on the floor inside a stall.
Instead of asking what was wrong, Jack had sat outside the door.
“You coming out?” Jack had asked.
“No.”
“Fine. I’ll stay here.”
“You’ll get in trouble.”
“Probably.”
“You don’t have to stay.”
“I know.”
According to Theo, Jack stayed for nearly forty minutes.
He didn’t offer a speech about courage or tell Theo that everything would be fine.
He simply talked about the ridiculous things he planned to do that year until Theo felt ready to stand up.
“That’s what Jack did,” Theo said. “He didn’t always know how to fix things. Most of the time, he made them worse. But he knew how to make you feel like you didn’t have to face them alone.”
I looked at Daniel.
He was crying openly now.
So was I.
Theo took another breath.
“When Jack got sick, people started calling him brave. Doctors called him brave. Nurses called him brave. Adults he’d never met called him brave.”
