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And, man, that statement made me like Sydney a little more. She was a breath of fresh air. When she smiled, I swore it lit up her whole face, and there was no way I couldn’t smile too. I’d like to think she had warmed up to me because she no longer had that permanent frown on her face, and she was sharing more of herself.
“When my mother died, Serena and I stepped into our roles as leaders. In a way, we lost ourselves in those roles. And now …” Her gaze dropped to the bagel, no longer tending to it, leaving it on the plate. “Now, I feel like I don’t know who I am anymore because I’ve been living this life for so long.”
And I got her. I understood where she was coming from, but it only made me more determined to find out who she had been before.
“In college, what was your degree in?”
“Advertising.”
“Why? Because of your family business or because you wanted to?”
“Because I didn’t know what else to take.”
Her honesty bled out of her like a gift. Not many people were like that. And I admired that about her.
“Don’t get me wrong. I’m not unhappy,” she rushed to say.
“I never thought you were.” I walked to the counter, needing a piece of paper and pen from the drawer. I cursed under my breath as I tried to open the drawer with my one good pinkie. Finally, I got it and plucked out a pen and a piece of paper and laid it on the table.
The power of the pinkie.
“We’re going to write it down.”
“Write what down?” Her eyebrows flew to her hairline.
I gave her a look that was all challenge, hopefully with some gentleness in there too. “Your bucket list. Everything you want to do.”
She eyed me with this dubious look.
“Don’t look at me like that. I didn’t get to where I am today without visualizing things, believing things, and making them happen. And now, you’re going to do the same.”
CHAPTER24
SYDNEY
Twenty minutesafter eating our bagels, we were both seated on the couch. I twisted the pen in my fingers, the paper still blank. It seemed ominous, the unmarked whiteness of it. I never knew a sheet of paper could have such scary expectations.
Oddly enough, Austin didn’t press me. He sat there patiently, which was so unlike him.
The TV was on in the background, and I secretly thanked him for turning it on. Because silence was deafening. It was difficult to figure out what I wanted to do when all I could see in front of me were my siblings. They had come first for so long that I couldn’t see my goals or dreams anymore. Maybe I never really had solid ones in the first place, but not knowing at all what some of them were was … intimidating.
“When you were younger, did you ever want to be anything? A princess maybe?” He gave me a boyish smirk, the one I had wanted to slap off his face many times, but at the moment, he was looking rather adorable. His hair was mussed from sleep, and there was light stubble on his chin.
I laughed. “Now, that would most likely be Brooke, not me. Brooke and her princess dresses, in her crown and her pageants when she was younger.” I motioned to myself with one hand. “Do I look like a beauty queen to you?”
“More like a swimsuit model on the cover of one of those sports magazines,” he said without hesitation, which made my cheeks warm.
“Yeah, right.”
He shrugged. “Only saying it how I see it.”
I wondered if this was our new catchphrase.
His face went a little more serious. “Sydney, I think you can do and be anything you want to be.”
“You know what you should’ve been?” I said, throwing him a pointed look. “A motivational speaker.”
He tipped his chin toward the paper in my lap. “Well, I’m not doing so well. It’s still blank.”
