AllFreeNovel
Share Us
From the corner of my eye, I watch as he flicks the page silently and stares, reading the myriad of post-it’s I left for him. His brows dip, then lift, then dip again. His mouth opens and closes and I know I’ve succeeded. I know I’ve impressed him.
Without a word, he spins on his heel, slamming both our doors behind him.
Two days later, the book is under my pillow, blue notes tabbed all over, responding to my questions and new notes asking me more.
For the first time since we met, I finally feel like my stepbrother sees me.
It’s unlike anything I’ve ever experienced before.
We passed The Brothers Karamazov back and forth for nearly a year. At some point, we stopped analyzing the award-winning novel and just started using it as a vessel to pass notes. So many notes.
Thoughts on the world, questions about our existence. Sometimes it was just simple things like my new favorite song or a movie he thought I’d like. And sometimes, it was more.
I smile, scrubbing my face dry of tears. That book holds some of my very best memories. What I wouldn’t do for just one more peek at it. One more walk down memory lane, to a time when things were so much simpler.
I turn my head toward the floor, half expecting to see the stack of books lying there, our book right on the top like always. But they’re not there. They’re gone. They were one of the few things he took with him when he left.
Of all the things he abandoned, he didn’t abandon those. He took them, protected them. Cherished them.
Loved them.
It’s a stark reminder that though he fled in the night like a thief, barely giving himself enough time to leave me a shitty goodbye note, he had enough wherewithal to pack his books.
His books, for fuck’s sake.
Why couldn’t he love me the way he loved them?
I was ready to give him everything—I did give him everything. My most special gift, I gave it to him and he threw it away like it meant nothing. And then he left.
My tears grow thick as I take another swig.
Scanning the room, my gaze catches on the sunflower claw clip on his headboard, and a sob shoves its way out my throat. I forgot about that clip. It had been my favorite.
The night before the funeral, Roman had taken it from my hair and used his dexterous fingers to massage the ache from my scalp. He’d hummed You Are My Sunshine to me, knowing it was mine and Mama’s song, and I’d cried against his chest.
Then he took the pain away.
I squeeze my eyes shut again, blocking out the images of him above me, inside me. Sometimes I feel like the pain of his abandonment is worse than the pain of losing Mama.
She didn’t have a choice when she left me. He did.
With a shaky hand, I reach for the clip. It feels like it’s miles away, and it takes my fingers an infinite amount of time before they brush over the rhinestones. He’d bought it for me at a little shop downtown. It wasn’t expensive. We’d still been kids when he got it for me, but I couldn’t stop bugging him about it. I went on and on about how beautiful I thought it was.
It reminded me of Daddy’s nickname for me, one Mama took on after he passed. Sunflower.
Every time I mentioned the clip, Roman told me to shut up. That I was annoying him. But that’s what I was supposed to do, right? Be his annoying baby sister. We were never siblings, though. We never had that relationship. It was always more of a comradery. We were both broken kids from broken homes whose broken parents found each other. Even as a young child I knew that.
One day, I found that clip on my bed. I’d run into his room, bursting through the door the way he hated, and threw my arms around him. He’d tried to shove me away, pretend like he hadn’t been the one who’d gone back to that shop and bought the clip, but I knew it was him. Who else could it have been? I never mentioned it to anyone else.
Reluctantly, he’d hugged me back, saying nothing, but I felt him smile against my cheek, and I knew.
He was good.
His rough, calloused fingers run over every dip and curve of my face. His eyes are reverent as he traces the freckles covering my cheeks. I smile softly at the small tickle and Roman bends down, his body a comforting weight above mine, and kisses me until my smile transforms into something else.
Something wholly different.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” he breathes against my jaw, peppering kisses across my skin. His fingers trace the heart-shaped birthmark on my breast, sending shivers down my spine.
