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Not even Ryder or Junior can compare to her, but it doesn’t seem to bother them. Just thinking of this makes my stomach twist. My inability to compare to Abby is getting to me, and I’ve been unable to brush it off like my dumb younger brothers. What does that say about me?
“Turn around.”
“What?”
“Turn the car around. I have to go back.”
Sydney looks at me like I’m crazy. “Did you forget something?” I reach for the steering wheel and she bats my hand away. “Okay, okay! I’ll turn around.”
When Sydney pulls the convertible into the driveway, I’m relieved to see Caleb’s car parked next to the garage. I tell Sydney to go home to Cary and I’ll call her later. I race up the back steps and into the air-conditioned beach house.
“Abby!” I call out, but no one answers.
I dart up the stairs and into my bedroom. My chest aches when I see her black suitcase next to the rollaway bed. I check the rest of the house, but she and Caleb are nowhere. There’s only one thing I can think to do right now. The only thing I think will show Abby that I’m done trying to prove a point.
I lift her suitcase onto my bed, then I carefully unpack all her belongings, putting everything back where it was. I put the suitcase back in the basement, then I strip the linens off the mattress and toss them into the washing machine. It takes me about forty minutes to figure out how to fold up the rollaway bed, and another ten minutes for me to haul it downstairs into the garage.
There’s no way I can move the furniture in my room around by myself, but I’m sure my dad and Caleb can do that later. I pack up some of my clothes and shoes in a gym bag, tossing in the toiletries I keep in my private bathroom. Then I toss the bag onto the bottom bunk in Ryder’s room. Finally, I grab all Caleb’s stuff and move it out of Ryder’s room and into mine. Then I write a note for Abby.
Abby,
I know the past week has been hard for you. It’s been pretty hard for me, too. I thought I knew how I would feel when you got here. I thought I’d be happy to have an older sister. And, to be honest, when my mom first called me to tell me you came home, I was so happy I cried tears of joy.
But within seconds, those tears of joy turned into tears of grief for what I’d lost. When you arrived, I lost my status as the only girl. My dad’s only princess. And instead of being honest with my parents, I decided to take it out on you. I hoped that if I made you feel bad enough, you’d leave and everything would go back to normal. But I was wrong. Nothing will ever be the way it was before you got here.
And I’m actually happy about that.
I’ve watched my parents suffer for too long. My dad doesn’t know I know this, but he has been praying for you to come back to him for eighteen years. That’s a long time to want something, or someone. I don’t want to ruin this summer for you and especially not for them.
I’m sorry I tried to push you away. I’m sorry I wasn’t the kind of sister or person you needed me to be.
I hope you’ll accept this apology and my room for the rest of the summer.
Love,
Jimi
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CALEB AND I manage not to piss off any beachgoers, but we agree that we’d better not stick around and press our luck. After our interesting dip in the ocean, we trudge back to the beach house in our wet clothes. Every time Caleb squeezes my hand, my stomach vaults as I remember how he moved inside me. Caleb was inside me! How weird and cool is that?
But as soon as the beach house comes into view, I suddenly remember what drove me out of there and onto the beach. I hope Jimi left with her friends. I really don’t want to face her right now. She’ll probably smell the sex on us and flash me a knowing smirk.
We use the outdoor shower to rinse off, then we sit on the wooden rocking swing on the porch for a while until we’re no longer dripping. Every once in a while, we hear some movement inside the house. Jimi and her friend are probably enjoying the fact that I’m gone. Probably celebrating by dancing in their pj’s.
“You ready to face the dragon?” Caleb says, wiggling his eyebrows.
“Can I use you as a human shield?”
“Yeah, baby. You know how much I like it when you use me.”
I shove him and he laughs as I head for the front door. I enter the breakfast nook keenly aware of my bare feet and my damp salty clothes. If I can just avoid Jimi long enough to take a shower and put on some clean clothes, this will be much easier.
We practically tiptoe through the kitchen and the downstairs hallway, past the living room, and up the stairs to Jimi’s bedroom. My heart clenches inside my chest when I see both my suitcase and the rollaway bed are gone. That must be what all the racket was inside the house when Caleb and I were on the porch. She must have been erasing all traces of my existence.
I cover my face and draw in a stuttered breath as the tears begin to fall. “Why does she hate me so much?”
Caleb takes me into his arms and strokes my hair. “Don’t worry, sunshine. She just doesn’t know you. And if she wants you out this bad, we’ll leave tonight. Let’s just wait for the rest of the family to get back so you can say good-bye.”
“No, I want to leave now,” I whisper, the pain in my chest spreading into my stomach, making me physically sick. “I can’t do this anymore. If they don’t understand why I had to leave, then I don’t care. I don’t want to have anything to do with them. Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why did I come here and put myself through this? Why did I think this would turn out well? Am I really that naive?”
Caleb holds my face in his hands and looks me in the eye. “You’re not naive. You’re just hopeful. You’re like sunshine and she—”
“She what?”
He lets go of my face and squeezes past me, then he heads straight for Jimi’s bed. He picks up a folded piece of light-blue notepaper off the comforter and stares at it for a moment before he turns around and holds it out to me.
“What is it?”
He shrugs. “I don’t know, but it has your name on it.”
I swipe my arm across my nose and take the paper from him. I unfold it slowly and my body aches with dread when I see my name written in Jimi’s handwriting. But I swallow my fear and continue reading. By the time I read the last line, I’m a disgusting, weeping mess.
“What does it say?” Caleb whispers, pulling me into his arms but never trying to sneak a peek at the letter.
I dig my fists into his back as I hold on to him and cry into his damp T-shirt. “It’s… it’s an apology.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
I w
hip my head around at the sound of Jimi’s voice and I’m surprised to see her standing in the threshold of her bedroom door, her eyes pink and puffy. She sniffs loudly as tears roll down her face.
“I’m sorry I was a jerk to you,” she says, staring at the floor as she wipes the tears from her cheeks. “Please don’t go. I promise I’ll stop being a jerk. Just… please don’t go yet. It would break my—our parents’ hearts.”
I let go of Caleb and I walk slowly toward her. “I’ve never had a sister or brother. My mom told me that after what happened with my adoption, my parents were turned off on the whole process and they decided to not put themselves through it again. I think she told me that hoping it would influence my feelings toward my birth parents. Like I would blame them for the fact that I never had any siblings.” I reach forward and take her hand in mine and she’s still staring at the floor. “But I never felt that way. I knew that I didn’t have siblings because my parents weren’t strong enough to deal with the process. Not because my birth parents made it difficult. Just like I know… our parents aren’t responsible for how you reacted to me coming here.”
“They don’t deserve to have this ruined for them. I was being selfish. I’m sorry. I just… I don’t know how to be someone’s little sister.”
“I don’t know how to be a big sister. But maybe we can learn together?”
She nods as she draws in a sharp, stuttered breath. I wrap my arms around her waist and I’m suddenly very aware of the fact that my little sister is at least three inches taller than me. She coils her arms around my shoulders tightly and it hurts my heart every time I feel her chest jerk from her sobs.
Finally, she calms down and the sniffling dies down. I slowly release her and we both let out a deep sigh at the same time, then we laugh.
“Well, that was just plain beautiful,” Caleb says, pretending to wipe a tear from the corner of his eye.
