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Mitchell stares at me for a beat, before a smile breaks out on his face and he runs over to me, picking me up, wrapping his arms around me. I have to choke back a sob, because as pissed off as I am at him, he’s still my brother—the only other person in the world that understands how it feels to deal with our parents.
“I missed you so much, Mar,” he whispers against my hair.
“You could have visited, you know?” I tell him, punching him in the shoulder.
“I’m sorry,” he says, as he hangs his head in shame.
“It’s no big deal. It’s in the past,” I lie.
“I’m so glad you’re moving in,” he tells me.
“I’m glad one of us is.”
“It’s not so bad here. He’s never even here,” he tells me, walking around to the trunk to grab some of my bags.
“Don’t you guys have someone that can do this?” my mother asks in disdain.
“Sorry, Claire. I gave the butler the day off,” he snarks.
“That’s mom to you.” She huffs, smoothing her hands over her suit.
“You’d have to act like a mom to be called one,” he mutters.
That’s the thing about our parents, neither one of them were really cut out to take care of children. They pushed it off on the hired help and hoped for the best. Instead, they got the opposite. They had one daughter kill herself, one go off the deep end, and a son that dropped out of college almost as quickly as he started.
“That’s enough, Mitchell. I won’t take the disrespect,” she says, disdain evident in her voice. “Do you need anything else from me?” my mother asks, from the driver’s side door.
I don’t know why I thought she’d come in, sit down, and visit for a bit before disappearing off the face of the earth.
“No. Thanks for nothing.” I sigh, rolling my eyes.
“The two of you are so dramatic.”
“I see she’s still a raging bitch,” Mitchell says, making me laugh.
“You got that right.”
“How did we get so lucky?” he asks.
“God always gives his toughest battles to those that can handle them, or whatever it is that quote says,” I say, waving my hand in the air.
“Where the fuck did you come up with that one?” he asks.
“I’ve had a lot of downtime the last three years,” I tell him.
“Let me show you to your room,” he says, when we walk inside.
I glance around. The house looks exactly like it did when I was kid. It almost has a clinical feel to it. It doesn’t look lived in. It never has.
“Do I not get my old room?” I joke.
“No, Spencer turned it into a gym when you moved out.”
“Of course he did.”
I follow him upstairs. We pass my old bedroom and I peek inside. He’s not lying, it’s a gym now. My heart pounds when I glance at Mallory’s bedroom door across the hall. I pause, tears pricking my eyes.
“It hasn’t been touched,” Mitchell says, pulling me from my thoughts.
