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Without waiting for me to reply, she moved around me and got back in the car. I let out a long breath and took my own seat, but I didn’t move back onto the road. Instead, I turned toward her, willing her to look at me.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you he was sick,” I said, my voice breaking a little.
Reluctantly, she finally met my eyes, hers pulling down at the edges. “Why didn’t you?”
“Because… I don’t tell anyone. I don’t talk about this stuff.”
She bit her lip and nodded like she got it. “Does anyone else know about your mom?”
“No.”
“Why do you do that?”
I swallowed hard. “What? Keep this stuff to myself?”
“Yes. You’re like a completely different person depending on the situation. I’ve known you for a year, but I don’t reallyknowyou.”
I didn’t expect the pain that shot through me at her words, and it took my breath away with its intensity. “Wait, really?”
“Kind of. I don’t know. I think maybe I get glimpses.”
Straightening in my seat again, I thought about all the conversations we’d had over the last year and how vague and surface-level they’d been. I’d noticed a lot of stuff about her just from existing in her world, but I had no idea how much she’d noticed about me. And yeah, real truths between us were few.
I didn’t know why it mattered, but for some reason, I felt I needed to tell her about my brother. She’d likely find out this weekend anyway, since there were photos of us as kids hanging on the walls in the living room. My gut ached just thinking about seeing them again, let alone having to explain him to her in the same crazy, blindsiding way.
I sighed, turning back to her again. “In the interest of only having one fight like this—”
“We’renotfighting.”
“Okay. In the interest of only having oneconversationlike this, there’s something else.”
“What?” Her eyes were beyond wary as she looked me over, and it made the guilt even heavier on my shoulders.
“I had a brother. He died when I was five.”
She closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the headrest. “Beau.”
“I know, I’m sorry. I just didn’t want you to see the photos or have my dad say something in front of you if you didn’t know.”
What I didn’t add was that I knew it would probably hurt her to find out about yet another thing I’d kept locked away. Because that shouldn’t matter to either of us. But for some reason, it did.
I cleared my throat, trying to force out a lighter tone. “That’d be pretty hard to explain if we’re a couple, right? We would have talked about it or something.”
“Yeah. We probably would have. Because people who are in a real relationship aren’t afraid to open up to each other.”
Since she still had her eyes tightly closed, I adjusted in my seat again and faced the road ahead of us. “Well, I guess it’s a good thing this isn’t a real relationship, then. Like I said, let’s just stick to the facts, and we’ll be good.”
“Fine,” she gritted out.
“Can I drive now?”
As soon as she nodded, I made sure the coast was clear before zipping the car back onto the road. We spent the rest of the ride in utter silence—including me, no earbud this time. And she didn’t even read. We just stared ahead and digested that “not a fight” in our own ways.
And even though we didn’t say a word, I could feel the tension leaking out of the car with every mile. I had no idea what was going on in that beautiful brain of hers, but with each time I felt her look at me while I continued to stare straight ahead, the knot in my chest loosened.
