“You’re going to defend my honor withwords?”
“Well, look at me. It’s not like I’ve got the muscles todo much else.” He gave his skinny arms a little wiggle. “I could throw a book at someone’s head, I guess.”
I was torn between feeling hopeless and amused. “Helpful, Jamie.”
“Ever and always.” Jamie’s lips twitched as if he was about to smile. “Is this about Beck?”
“Of course not.”Tell Jamie about what Beck said today, the rational part of my mind urged.Tell someone.“Just trying to gauge how chivalrous my brother is. The answer? Not very.”
Jamie didn’t even acknowledge the insult. “You’re taking him showing up pretty well,” he said softly. “I wasn’t sure if you?—”
“It’s fine.” The two words were more of a snap than anything else, bitten out in desperation for him to shut up. The memory surfaced anyway, though. Two kids in a dark garden, the moonlight shining down. A lighter in Beck’s hands, and then one of his hands in mine. “I don’t want to talk about him anymore.”
“All right.” I could feel Jamie’s eyes still on me, and I held perfectly still despite my pulse slamming in my ears. I was surprised he couldn’t see it in my throat. “Did Mom tell you Destelle is coming home?”
At the mention of our sister, everything seemed to stop. Jamie’s breathing, my pulse, and time itself. “What?”
“For our graduation. For a week, I think. I’m not sure if she’s bringing Harry with her or not, but Mom said?—”
“She’s not coming home,” I said, as if it were a fact. Anger reared within me, replacing the sick feeling that’d surfaced. “She’s not staying here.”
Now, when Jamie frowned, he looked sad. “She is. Mom said she’s staying in the guest room for a week?—”
“No.” I swung my legs over the side of Jamie’s bed and stood. “She’ll cancel a few days before, like she always does. Because our graduation isn’t any more important than Christmases and birthdays and everything else she’s skipped.”
“Nellie—”
But I was already on a roll. “Her new life is more important to her, Jamie. She’ll say she’ll come, but she’ll miss this too—just watch.” I turned around then, ready to storm back into my room, and even though it was a different emotion, I almost felt worse.
The sadness in Jamie’s eyes had spread to his voice as he called after me. “She’s our sister, Nell.”
“Tell her that.”
As I swung out into the hallway, I nearly slammed straight into Dad, who’d emerged from his bedroom.
He looked—rough. His pajamas were rumpled as if he’d been wearing them for a few days, and honestly, they smelled like he had, too. The bottom half of his face was peppered with graying facial hair, too much to be called a 5 o’clock shadow. Unease shot through me at the sight of him, and I had the strongest urge to backpedal into Jamie’s room and hide like a child.
Instead, I cleared my throat. “Hi, Dad.”
Dad blinked at me, as if even though I’d almost run into him, he hadn’t noticed me until I spoke. “Hey, Nellie.” His voice was coarse. He hesitated in front of me,like he wasn’t sure if he should say something or continue on. “I’m going to get a drink from the kitchen.”
He said it in more of athis is what I’m doingway and notcome and join meway. “Okay.”
Jamie had gotten up from his bed and stepped into the threshold behind me, his hand closing around the door frame. “How are you feeling?”
Dad hummed a little under his breath in answer, shuffling forward, his slippers creating ahush-hushsound on the wooden floors because he didn’t pick up his feet.
“That’s the first time I’ve seen him all weekend,” Jamie whispered to me, the two of us still watching as Dad moved down the hall like a ghost. He turned at the stairs, descending them without glancing back once. “He looks…” Jamie didn’t finish.
He didn’t need to. I knew exactly what Jamie was thinking, because I’d thought it, too.Rough.
It’d been the middle of March when things suddenly shifted. Dad came home from work late, eyes red-rimmed as if he’d been crying. He’d shut himself in his office and hadn’t come out for dinner. Mom had said that the case he’d been working on—and had recused himself from—had gotten to him, and that he was taking time off. She wouldn’t share more details about what had been so bad, and after the trial became public record, Jamie found that it’d been a case involving a young drunk driver.
We’d been confused, because Dad had presided over worse cases as a court judge. I wouldn’t have thought that’d been enough for Dad to recuse himself.
I wouldn’t have thought it’d be enough for him to pullback his support from me and close himself off entirely, either, but here we were.
“For his sake,” I muttered, turning to give Jamie one last look before heading back to my room. “Destelle better come home.”
