I squeeze her hand and pull away. “That sounds like a therapy exercise.”
She smiles. “Because it is.”
“On adults, Mom. Not on twenty-year-olds with minimal impulse control. You know how many hormones we have raging through our bodies? We’re all emotional disasters and you want me to just sit down and have a calm conversation?” I’m half joking but, yeah, kind of serious.
She laughs, and I actually needed to hear her laugh because it makes me feel better. But she doesn’t stop insisting that I talk with Aubrey. She walks me through it: start with how you feel, not what they did. Use “I” statements. Listen even when it makes you angry. Name one specific thing you need from the conversation. Have an exit plan if it goes sideways.
I file every word in the part of my brain that hoards my mother’s advice, like a squirrel hoards acorns, but I know a conversation like that wouldn’t go as calmly and rationally as she suggests.
“You’ll be okay,” she says.
“You don’t know that.”
“I know you.” She stands to move around to my side of the island, and brushes a strand of hair from my face. “You’re stronger than you give yourself credit for.”
I lean against her, just into her warmth that’s always here for me. “Thanks.”
“Well, I should start on dinner. Anything specific you want?”
“Ask Carter since he eats most of it before anyone else gets a serving.”
She laughs. “You’re in luck because he’s not home right now.”
“Oh.”
Actually, I haven’t seen Carter in three days. He hasn’t texted a dumb meme or shown up for our nightly cereal ritual. He’s been leaving super early in the morning to go to the gym, and then he comes back really late at night when I’m already in my room getting ready for bed.
I’m concerned that nasty text about him—about us—affected him more than he’s admitting.
Mom opens the fridge, then turns to look at me with pursed lips, telling me she’s thinking about something. “Wait. He did come home. I’m pretty sure I heard him and Dorien. They’re probably in the basement. Why don’t you go ask what they want to eat? Maybe Dorien will actually join us for dinner.”
Hopefully not.
He’s someone I’ve been actively avoiding—even skipping Mixed Media after our critique went badly—because I’m still irritated by things he’s done recently. Like invading my privacy and saying insensitive comments around Cinna.
Or I’m using my irritation as an excuse because being around him makes me… unstable.
My heart aches around him, and I can’t have that feeling inside me.
I can’t have feelings ofwantinghim to touch me.
But it was dumb to skip Mixed Media since my GPA has been sliding in all classes. Morrison gave me an extension on a Visual Studies paper and her thin-lipped generosity screams disappointment louder than any grade could. And the gravesitevisit is a little over a week away, pressing on the back of my skull like a migraine that hasn’t fully arrived yet.
Mom nudges me out of the kitchen. “Go on. Go ask what they want for dinner. I was thinking lasagna, but I could also do chicken.”
“Fine.”
The basement is Carter and Dorien’s territory. Basically, a sacred man-cave. It might as well have a sign that reads “No Girls Allowed.” But three days of silence from Carter is too much. I need to see him to make sure he has the same dumb smirk as always, even if it means Dorien is there.
Without knocking, I open the door and go down the basement stairs.
The bare bulb is on, lighting up mostly the sectional, coffee table, and braided rug. The TV is off, and two people are sitting on the couch. Neither of them is Carter.
Dorien is on the far end. Aeron is on the other. And my brother is holding a glass bong in both hands, lips pressed to the rim and sucking up smoke. Smoke curls around his face and my entire body goes numb.
I stop filtering all thoughts and simply react. “What the fuck, Aeron?! Put that down!”
Aeron’s eyes open and he sits up. He’s coughing and hacking as he sees me on the stairs. His face cycles through surprise, annoyance, then the careful blankness he retreats to when he decides he doesn’t owe me a reaction. He sets the bong on the coffee table as his coughing lessens.
