“Yeah, Mom,” I call back, my voice tight. I slow down, my heart starting to pound for an entirely different reason. “I’m home. I have a friend with me so just—”
I stop dead in the arched doorway. Niall is right behind me, so close he bumps into my back, his hands automatically reaching out to steady himself on my waist. I barely register the touch. My entire world has just narrowed down to the woman sitting in the armchair opposite my mother.
She’s older than me—maybe twenty-four or twenty-five. Her hair is darker than mine, sleek and straightened. She’s wearing a tailored blazer and expensive-looking jeans. An absolute stranger of a person in a familiar body.
Wake up. Wake up from the dream.
“Who’s this?” Mom asks, her voice airy as she gestures toward Niall with a glass of Pinot Grigio. She looks at me, her eyes tracking the oversized Saints hoodie, and a knowing look crosses her face. I don’t even have the power to get upset over her bemused, motherly expression.
“This is Niall,” I say, my voice sounding like it belongs to someone else. I look at Niall, then back at the woman in the chair, and just as quickly look away. I can’t breathe. I can’t think. “Niall, this is my mom. And that’s Jamie.”
I swallow hard.
“My sister.”
Part Two
??
All I Want
17
The Gilmore Girls
Molly
October, 2007
I'VE BEEN KNOWNto be slightly overdramatic.
Sue me.
But maybe you’d be dramatic too if it sometimes felt like your life was being scripted by someone with a penchant for dramatic irony.
I haven’t seen Jamie in six years.
Before she left me, she was my entire world. She would braid my hair for me, and take me to soccer practice, and made sure I always had a lunchbox packed.
My mother and father were always working. To me, Jamie was not only just my angelic big sister who could do no wrong. She was my hero. She was my world.
There was a time when I was to Jamie, what Lorraine is to me. The only difference is I would never leave my little sister.
She would never have to feel the pain I felt when I realized Jamie wasn’t coming back.
Jamie moved to California, mere months before our family imploded. It was like after she left, everything fell apart. Mom officially traded parenting for a permanent seat on the avoidanceexpress, Dad was always working, and Lorraine was just a toddler—a tiny, demanding anchor I wasn't equipped to carry.
I was alone.
She sent emails at first, and called, but within eighteen months she became a stranger who I just happened to share a mother with. I knew why she left—her and Mom were like oil and water, always fighting and exploding on each other—but understanding why didn’t make me feel any better about it.
She still left me.
I hadn’t wanted to move to Ireland, but I was finally, begrudgingly, starting to settle. I’ve made friends. I have a good spot on the team. I was just getting used to waking up in my lavender room. I was just realizing I liked being thousands of miles away from my old problems.
And then Jamie showed up and ruined everything.
For the past two weeks, she’s been occupying the guest room down the hall. Lorraine, bless her innocent heart, has been over the moon to meet the big sister from the pictures she barely remembered. But me? I’ve barely given her—or my mother, for that matter—more than three muttered words in passing.
