The knowing sound plucks at the strings of my annoyance. “What?”
“Clara, your uncle has a crush,” he sing-songs.
“No, I don’t.”
Crush has started to feel like an understatement. Stevie is a temptation I can’t shake. My first thought in the morning and my last before I drift off to sleep.
“You do,” he says. “How long has this been going on?”
I roll my eyes. “Nothing is going on.”
“At least tell me if it’s serious.”
A sigh lifts my chest. “Nothing is happening with Stevie, Evan.” My voice comes out harsher than intended.
The smile falls from Evan’s face. “Why not?” I think I can see a muscle flicker in his jaw, and I know he’s already guessed the answer.
“Because I’m leaving.”
He nods like I’ve confirmed his hypothesis. “Right.”
I push my shoulders back into the cushions of the couch. “What?”
My brother shakes his head and runs a hand over his hair buzzed close to his scalp. “Nothing.”
“You’re thinking something.”
He lets out a sigh. “Just wondering if you’ll ever stop running.”
I blink. “I’m not running.”
The words come out on instinct, but they sound false, even to my own ears. We both know I’m lying. We both know I’ve been running for far too long.
The smile he gives me is soft, a little sad. Most of my exchanges with my brother are teasing, lovingly insulting, sarcastic. I never know how to take it when he’s serious. It reminds me of times I’d rather not remember.
“Let me know if you’re able to make it to Thanksgiving. We’ve always got a place for you.”
My throat tightens. I’ve hardly been to my brother’s house, the one he inherited from Mom, the one she didn’t get to live in nearly long enough. But I know he means what he said, that if Iever show up on his doorstep, there will be a bed for me to crash in and a seat at his table.
I don’t deserve him. I don’t deserve his steadfastness, his patience with me. I shouldn’t have stayed away for so long. I should have gone home, been there for him the way he’s always been there for me.
Just the thought of it feels like a fist squeezing around my larynx.
“I will,” I say, but I can tell he thinks this holiday will be like all the rest. I wish I could promise him otherwise, but I’m not there yet.
He and Clara tell me bye, her blowing kisses at the phone, him smiling fondly at her, and hang up, leaving me alone once more. It doesn’t feel like it used to.
I reach for the remote and turn on the TV, needing to fill the silence. A grainy comedy plays on the screen, a joke followed by the laugh track. It’s an episode I’ve seen more times than I can count, but for the first time, it doesn’t immediately make me think of the times when I’d climb in bed with my mom, but the nights Stevie and I spent here, on this couch, sharing a bowl of popcorn, our fingers greasy from the butter.
It only makes the loneliness intensify, and so I flip it off, pushing up from the couch. I’m going to find Stevie.
Morninglightisshiningthrough the Airstream windows when I hear the crunching of tires on the driveway. My heart ratchets in my chest when I see Jack’s Jeep. It pulls to a stop behind my truck, and a moment later he climbs out, pulling his jacket tighter around his neck against the chill in the air. I haven’t seen him in days, and the sight of him hits me like a brick right in my sternum.
Windswept hair, stubble that’s almost turned into a beard, eyes clear as the morning sky. Even from here, I can see the exhaustion in his gait, and I wonder if he’s been sleeping as badly as I have. If the cabin has felt as empty as the Airstream.
I’m in such deep shit.
Jack looks up, and his gaze catches on mine on the window. A smile tugs up the corners of his lips, and I feel it like strings attached to my heart, pulling me toward him. I’ve missed him, and that thought isterrifying.
