I hover at the top of the stairs, listening, hoping to catch a scrap of information that tells me we can survive this.
I don’t know how long I stand there. It might be seconds, or it might be hours. The only thing that makes me move is the sound of my phone ringing in my pocket.
It slices through the quiet, making my heart lurch violently.
My first instinct is panic, closely followed by dread, wondering if this is Lorcan calling to tell me my time is up.
But when I look at the screen, I blink.
It’s Joe.
I want to ignore it, but something makes me answer.
“What?” I say, already bracing myself.
There’s a pause.
“I deserved that. And I’m not calling to argue.”
I lean against the wall, sliding down until I’m sitting on the floor outside Scout’s room.
“Then why are you calling?”
“Because I’ve been a dick. And because after you came by the other day, it finally clicked that I don’t get to punish you for something you didn’t do.”
“You don’t have to say this. I’m happy with us being civil for the girls’ sake, but that’s it?—”
“I do. I’ve been taking my grief and aiming it straight at you because it’s easier than admitting how much it hurts.”
This was the last thing I was expecting Joe to say, and for a moment, I’m not sure how to respond, so the silence stretches between us.
“I should have protected Carly,” I say quietly. “I should have seen it sooner. If I had?—”
“Stop that! That’s exactly what I’ve been letting you do, and it’s bullshit. You were her sister, not her keeper, and you don’t get to carry her choices just because you loved her.”
My eyes sting, and I screw them shut, determined not to shed any more tears. “I keep replaying it, over and over. But every version, I do something different. I found a better solution, but...”
“None of those versions guarantee she lives,” Joe finishes. “That’s the part we don’t want to accept.”
I swallow hard. “You hate me.”
“I don’t. I was angry. I was…drowning, and I took it out on you because I needed someone to blame other than Carly. But keeping you at arm’s length didn’t protect me. If anything, it just made everything worse because it hurt Amber and Skye.”
I wipe my eyes with the back of my hand. “I’m sorry. For all of it.”
“Me too.”
We sit in the quiet together, but the silence doesn’t feel as heavy as before.
“I see the way he looks at you,” Joe adds after a moment. “Cormac.”
“Yeah?”
“He’s in deep, Fi. Trust me, I’ve been there. I know what that looks like.”
Tears slip free before I can stop them. “I love him.”
“I know.”
