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Eighteen
Yasmine sighed, grimacing at the diner window. “Are you sure about this?”
I had called Yasmine to let her know what was going on, in as little detail as possible. She suggested that we meet at a diner in our hometown, just off of Route 9. When I had stepped into the diner, I closed my eyes and breathed in the familiar smells of buttery pancakes and sizzling bacon. I looked around at all of the happy diners, sitting in booths, laughing with friends and loved ones.
I brought myself back to the present moment, to Yasmine’s question. I wasn’t sure, but I had to do what I had to do to save my marriage. I bit my lip as I nodded, trying not to speak, trying to delay the inevitable. Finally, I said, “Yeah. At least for the next month while we’re getting ready for the wedding. Michael is on edge, and what with everything happening with my dad, I can’t afford to be away from home right now.” I didn’t want to add the real reason I wasn’t going back on tour with her and the band: Michael was forbidding it, holding it over my head as an ultimatum. Either you stay here, or we get a divorce right now, he said last night. I sighed, dropping my head into my hands. How I had managed to gain my dream job and lose it in the span of months, I couldn’t explain. Maybe after the wedding, Michael would calm down.
Hopefully.
“Okay.” Yasmine turned back to me, a small smile playing on her lips. “The job will be waiting for you when you get back. We’ll make do for the time being. I know a photog that can stand in for the month. Claro, it’s not as good as having you.” She smiled again. “But we’ll make do.”
“Speaking of shitty situations, how are you?” I itched to touch her, to assure her that I understood the complexities of her grief. I refrained. “How’s your family doing?”
“They’re doing. I’m doing.” She sighed. “Abuela was the toughest of all of us, so to not have her here really shows us how much we need her. But we’re managing, somehow.” The tears welled up in her eyes, fell to her cheeks. She swiped them away as if resigned to the grief.
“I’ve been there. My brother was the glue that held my family together. It’s been a hard five years without him.”
Yasmine’s eyes found mine, a question evident in them. “Your brother? I didn’t know you have a brother.”
“Had.” I winced as I was assaulted with all of the images of him in hospice, wasting away into the sheets. “He died years ago.”
“He’s still your brother, even when in Heaven.” Yasmine smiled a weary smile, the edges folding like an old newspaper. She held up a hand as I started to protest. “I know, you don’t believe in Heaven and Hell, nor in God. Ya se. Regardless, him being dead doesn’t make him any less your brother. It doesn’t stop him from being a part of you.”
The weight of that conclusion—that he would always be a part of me—fell on my chest. She was right, of course. Every step I took in this world, I carried Dante with me. It was in the joy I experienced with friends, the lightheartedness I now shared with my parents. It was in my love for Andrew.
Your love for Michael, I corrected. Andrew never loved you. And you hardly had time to love him before he rejected you.
I cleared my throat, mentally grasping at ways to change the subject. “I guess. So when do you all officially get back on the road?”
Yasmine tapped her fingers as she thought. “Soon. A couple of days.” She caught my eyes again. “You have a couple of days to change your mind.”
I smiled, knowing the feeling didn’t reach my eyes. “Sorry, Yas. I’ll come back as soon as the wedding’s over.”
She shrugged, resigned. “Just figured I’d try again to get you to come.” She put her hand over mine. “Come back to us soon, sí?”
I smiled at her, hoping my sadness didn’t dim it. “Sí,” I agreed.
With one thing off my checklist, I was so hurried to get to the other that I was not watching where I was going. I bumped into a human barrier with the force of my hurried walking. “Sorry,” I muttered without looking up.
“Where you off to, squirt?” The familiar voice had my head snapping up and my eyes searching for his. So much for putting off the inevitable. I wanted to save this conversation for last, maybe not even have it at all. I wondered if Andrew would leave it be if I just slowly, gradually stopped talking to him for a month.
Sure,I thought sarcastically. Okay.
“Andrew. Just the person I wanted to see.” I straightened up, trying to infuse steel into my spine and my voice. I thought I was doing a pretty good job of it, especially when I caught the everpresent frown on Andrew’s face. I took a steadying breath. “How’s things?”
“‘How’s things?’ Ace, you saw me like yesterday.”
“I know. Just trying to see how you’re doing.”
“Why don’t you tell me how you’re doing? Since I was just the person you wanted to see.”
I grimaced. “I did say that, didn’t I?”
“Stop stalling. What is it?”
The velvety command had me pulling up short. I searched his cherry-wood eyes, looking for a way out of this very painful next step. Instead, what I found there was understanding, compassion. As if he knew what I was about to say. He had braced his body, his legs spread in a square stance, arms crossed. The longer I stared at him, trying to memorize this face that I was so used to seeing and loathe to forget for even a moment, the more he narrowed his eyes.
“Ace.” His murmur wrapped around me like a blanket. I started to unravel. “What is going on?”
