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Samantha looks haggard as she tinkers with the sleeve of her baggy sweatshirt, her eyes vacant. A chasm of bleakness.
A gaping, missing piece.
Blinking, she clears her throat and glances at June, who’s standing idly beside me with a similar emptiness painting her face. “June, honey, maybe we can sit down and discuss colleges tomorrow. If you’re up for it.”
The dark cloud hovering over us sparks with a brewing thunderstorm as June tenses, her eyes flashing with lightning. “You want to talk about colleges?”
“Of course. You need to decide where you’re going to go.”
“No, I don’t.”
“June…”
She holds back a rainfall of tears, her hands balling into fists. A long, messy braid hangs over her shoulder, swinging against her T-shirt as she shakes her head with incredulity. “I don’t want to go to college. I don’t want to leave the town my brother took his last breath in.”
Samantha gasps a little. Just a sharp, painful intake of air.
I blink out of my haze and reach out a tentative hand to June. My fingers lightly graze her elbow, and she startles for a moment, only relaxing when she realizes it’s me. She softens as our eyes lock. The storm passes.
June finishes through trembling lips, “And I don’t want to leave the only brother I have left.”
I stiffen.
With a lingering look, she moves away, sweeping past her mother who stands rigid in the center of the kitchen, her skin pasty, her hair pulled up into a ratty mound of mats.
Samantha lets out the breath she was holding and finds me staring after June, probably looking as wrecked as I feel. “You’ll talk to her?”
My gaze skips back to Samantha. “What?”
“About the colleges. It’s important. She needs…she needs something to look forward to. A distraction. A purpose.”
“She needs time to heal, Samantha. It hasn’t even been two weeks.”
“Mom.” She worries her lip with her teeth, ducking her head away from my frown of confusion. “Would it kill you to call me that?”
My breath stops.
My heart clenches.
Samantha has never asked me that before. The Baileys have always respected my decision to address them by their names instead of Mom and Dad. They know it’s not because I don’t love them or appreciate their kindness and nurturing over the years. It’s simply a deep-seated childhood response to what happened to me, and it’s one I’ve carried with me all my life.
But now Theo is gone.
I’m the only son she has.
Guilt eats at me.
Stepping forward, I approach Samantha for a hug, for sympathy, for an apology that I’ll never be exactly what she needs…but she steps away. She retreats.
She offers the apology instead.
“Forget it,” Samantha mutters softly. “I’m sorry I said that.”
She sighs, then spins on her heel and exits the kitchen without another word. Without a backward glance. She leaves me alone to finish the dishes, and I make my way back to the sink.
The silence is deafening, so I turn the faucet on full blast, hoping to drown out the memory of Theo’s laughter, his jokes, the way June would squeal when he picked her up and threw her over his shoulder until she was dangling upside down. I zone out, trying not to think about the special moments we shared in this kitchen—disastrous cooking lessons, family dinners, comical bickering over chores, and late-night munchies when we’d stay up until sunrise engrossed in epic video game marathons. I sigh, wishing for June to return and wrap her arms around me again, and knowing I would hug her back.
I stare down at the broken plate, wondering how I can piece it back together.
