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“I’ll grab the plates. You can just sit down, Ria,” Jamie offered, springing right into action.
They were being weird. Their voices, actions, vibes were way off. I realized this but found that I didn’t care enough to ask. So I just did as I was told.
There was an awkward bit of silence as Jamie set the table, and Alba struggled to say whatever she needed to say. Even Toebeans was uncharacteristically quiet, curled up on one of the chairs, bushy tail flicking.
“So,” my sister finally said, and I could tell by the way her voice dipped that she was gearing up for A Conversation. “Interesting to see that this whole misery train runs both ways.”
Jamie set a massive glass of water beside my bare plate. One of the football-sized ones that came with the apartment, and that we kept at the very back of the cupboards, because no one ever needed to drink almost a liter of any liquid in one sitting. Unless it came directly from a bottle of wine.
Speaking of which, “Do we have any wine?”
“No,” they both said at the same time.
Bummer.
Alba cleared her throat for what must have been the fourth time in two minutes.
“Do you need a lozenge?” My voice came out sharp enough that both her and Jamie raised their eyebrows at me.Shit. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to snap.”
“What’s going on with you?” she asked.
“Nothing.”
She cocked her head. “Really? Because Adrien told me at least some of what happened in Victoria, and it didn’t sound like nothing.”
“Well, it was.”
I snatched a slice of naan out of the open foil, ripped a piece off, and shoved it into my mouth. They both kept staring.
“If it makes you feel any better,” Alba eventually said in a soft tone, “he’s not doing great, either.”
The naan turned to a clump of clay in my mouth. I forced it down with a big gulp of water.
“I don’t care,” I muttered, keeping my eyes down.
“Ria, you should know—”
“Okay, you know what, new rule,” I decided. “We’re officially adding Adrien to the banned list of conversation topics, right under Josh.”
“No,” Alba said.
“I’m not asking.”
“And I’m not going to sit back and let you fall into this pit again,” she retorted.
“What pit? I’m telling you I don’t want to talk about your asshole boss—”
“No, Ria. No more conversation bans. You don’t want to talk about Adrien, you don’t want to talk about Josh, you don’t want to talk about school, youneverwant to talk about Dad. You just… you keep internalizing everything, punishing yourself, and it’s… so difficult for me to watch. If you need therapy, we can—”
“Alba, Idon’twant to talk about this with you,” I told her as calmly as one could through clenched teeth.
“Fine, then just listen,” Alba said. “We’re having this conversation one way or another, because I’m not—Ican’tjust sit back and do nothing anymore. Not in good conscience. So please just let me say my piece, because I think… sometimes with the things you say and how you act, it feels like you think what happened with Dad was your fault, and—”
“Alba,stop!”
Her eyes were welling up, her chin wobbling a little as she began to rub her stomach. “Am I right? Is that what you think?”
I couldn’t pry my jaw open enough to answer her, though. Maybe because I didn’t really know what to say.
