Page 72 of The Story Between Us

She came into his office and organized the chaos of papers and books.

Her hand landed on the Make-A-Wish envelope. “Have you thought about contacting these people?”

His shoulders tightened before he could stop them. “I don’t know.”

“It’s just a kid who wants to meet you. That’s all.”

He turned his chair to face her. She was holding the envelope like it was fragile—cream-colored, official-looking, the logo of a foundation that granted wishes to dying children.

“That kid doesn’t really want to meet me.” The words came out quieter than he intended. “He wants to meet the person who wrote those books. And that person…that was my sister. She was the brains behind all of it. It’s her story.”

He expected her to back off. Everyone backed off when he mentioned Emma. The grief card was his trump, the thing he played when he wanted the conversation to end.

But Livvie didn’t back off. And of course not—she hadn’t backed off any of the other times he’d mentioned Emma.

“With all due respect,” she said, and her voice was gentle but firm, “it’s your story too, and this kid simply wants to meet the author of the stories he loves.”

She set the Make-A-Wish envelope down on his desk, where he couldn’t ignore it anymore.

“Do you ever want your own name on a book?”

He stared at her.

No one had ever asked him that. He’d never even let himself think it—not really. Wanting something for himself had always felt like betrayal. Like admitting he could exist separate from Emma. Like letting her go.

“I hadn’t even thought about it,” he said slowly. The lie burned in his mouth. “I got into this because it was something she loved. I was going to be a literature professor. That was the plan.”

“But you wrote that one story,” Livvie said. “The one from junior year. You’ve always wanted to write. Wasn’t it a space opera?”

He blinked at her. Oh wow—he remembered now, he’d told her about that. Shoot. And of course, the memory surfaced before he could stop it. The critique group in college. The circle of chairs. The girl who’d said his prose was “overwrought” while everyone else laughed. The professor afterward, who’d pulled him aside and said the story was gutsy—but by then the damage had been done.

“There was this critique group,” he heard himself saying. “They tore my work apart. Made me feel like an idiot for even trying.” He paused. “Emma was the only one who said it was good. She was always the only one.”

Livvie cocked her head. “Not the only one.”

He stilled, but she just moved on to the bookshelf, dustcloth in hand, working her way along the spines.

His pulse thundered as he turned back to his laptop, tried to focus on the blinking cursor.

Not a chance.

Behind him, he heard the clink of glass. Frames being moved.

Then: “Oh my goodness—you were a finalist for the Edgar Allan Poe Award? For Minnesota Young Writers?”

His stomach dropped.

The photograph of him holding his certificate, standing in front of a banner that said Minnesota Young Authors, was supposed to be face down, buried behind other frames, invisible.

“I didn’t win,” he said without looking at her. “Just a finalist.”

“That’s still amazing!” She was holding the framed picture now. He could hear it in her voice—that excited, delighted tone that made him want to hide and never stop looking at her at the same time. “And it says you got invited to a writing camp? The Young Authors’ Residency?”

“Yeah.”

“Did you go?”

The silence stretched too long.