Never here.
Why didn’t I realize that sooner? I guess it never mattered to me where we spent time, but staring
at my brother as he crosses the room, I’m starting to get a pretty big clue as to why it’s never here.
“Dec, why are you walking like that?” I ask quietly.
Declan freezes between the back of the couch and the wall, body straight up and down like a
pencil, arms pressed close to his sides. He cranes his neck to look at me. “I don’t want to break
anything else,” he says, eyes wide.
“Anything else?” I wrack my brain, trying to remember what he broke.
“Yeah, man. That vase, remember?”
“No, I don’t,” I say honestly.
His shoulders relax, and he carefully turns toward me. “It was green, with a little dragon on it.
Pretty small. You had it on one of these column thingeys in the entryway. I knocked into it about a year
ago.” His eyes dart between mine. “Do you really not remember?”
“I remember the vase, now that you mentioned it, anyway.”
He looks dumbfounded, he and Maya sharing glances. “You told me it cost you eighty grand. You
seemed a little upset when it happened.”
I make a hum of agreement, because yeah, the vase was hundreds of years old. So it was a little
piece of history gone forever. But I don’t want to make him feel bad.
“You…but…” he groans and rubs his hands over his cheeks. “I spend the whole time I’m in here
afraid to move. I don’t want to break any more of your shit.”
“It’s just stuff,” I say carefully, my earlier conversation with Maya roaring back into my mind.
“Yeah, but you obviously love it, or it wouldn’t be in your house.”
The silence of the room penetrates, and I glance over to see everyone focused on us. I lower my
gaze to Maya’s bare feet, and run my finger down a blue vein running along the top. “Yeah, I like it, I
guess. But you guys are my family. I wouldn’t put the stuff over any of you. Are you…have you guys
not been coming over because of that?” Slow nods from everyone.
Jesus.
“I didn’t realize you guys were uncomfortable in my house,” I say quietly, feeling like a fucking
idiot. I like having nice things around me. I take pleasure in looking at them. Simple as that. But
somehow they’ve come between me and my family.
