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Justin placed his hand on top of mine on the gearshift between our seats and gripped it tightly.
“You don’t know how much it means to me to hear that from you. I’ve been living a lie for a long, long time. And it’s time for my family to know who I really am.”
“It’s a tough job, but somebody’s got to do it!”
“I hear ya.” He let my hand go, and we got out of the car and walked to the door in silence.
“Wait,” I said when he went to open the door.
“What?”
“Before we go inside, I have something else I want to say to you. And it’s that I’m so proud of you. That you left and made your life on your own terms. I always told you, you were the lucky one. And I really believe that. You didn’t let this place numb you. Take away your vision. That makes you more than lucky; that makes you free. More free than I’ll ever be.”
“Big sister, you’re talking like you’re eighty years old. If you want to change your life, just go out and do it,” he said, sounding like Kayla.
“It’s not that simple—I have Evan; I have—”
“It is that simple. If there’s one thing I’ve learned on my own, it’s that when you’re numb, you pinch yourself,” he said passionately. “When you ain’t free, you get free. There are no other options. We only get to do this once.”
“Thank you,” I said. “Now let’s go in here and get something to eat before you make me cry for the third time today!”
Justin opened the front door for me. As I walked by, I saw a glint of light shimmering from his eyelid. I turned to him and blinked.
“A sparkle,” I said.
“What?”
“You have a sparkle on your eyelid.” I reached over and plucked it off. “Probably from my eye shadow.”
“Probably.”
“Excuse me,” a voice called from behind Justin. We both turned to see a woman standing at the foot of the steps. It was Kim.
“Can we help you?” Justin asked.
“Yes, you can,” she answered slyly.
“Oh.” I laughed uneasily to hide my confusion. Justin didn’t know who she was and the last thing I wanted was for him to get loud and lead everyone in the house to the door. “This is my friend from work, Kim. I’ll handle this.”
“You sure?” Justin looked at me oddly, I guessed hearing the tension in my voice.
“Yeah, we just need to handle something with the choir,” I managed, daring Kim to say anything to the contrary with my eyes.
“Okay,” Justin said. He looked from her to me and squinted his eyes. “Don’t take too long. You know the natives get restless when someone’s holding up dinner.”
“I won’t,” I replied as Justin walked away slowly.
“She won’t.” Kim tried to step up to see inside, but I came outside quickly and shut the door behind me.
“You have some nerve coming here,” I said. “This is my parents’ house. Whatever drama you have with Jr needs to be handled somewhere else.”
“Oh, I plan on handling my ‘drama’ all right,” Kim said, puckering her paint
ed red lips. A black car was parked beside mine and I could see the little boy’s face pressed against the back window. “I just needed to give Jr something.”
“What?”
She reached into her purse and pulled out an envelope.
