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"I won't tell her, but… do you think it will be a problem?" she asks. "Will this make it harder?"
"No," I lie.
"Do you promise?" Pain fills her blue eyes. She looks like the exact mix of Mom and Dad. She has Dad's blue eyes and Mom's sharp features. They're both tall, smart, and tough. "I can't lose you, Damon. I don't know what I'll do if…" She can't say it. That's not like her.
Daphne is a future doctor. She knows her way around medical terms. She lives with a certain familiarity toward the subject of death. But even she can't say if next time you suffer from alcohol poisoning, you don't get to the ER in time. If next time, your heart stops in your sleep. Or you get into a car and drive off a cliff. Or you asphyxiate. That's how a lot of people go.
She doesn't bring up the incident that sent me into rehab. The hotel staffer who found me drunk in someone else's room. The blood alcohol level high enough to kill me. The doctor's warning I'm likely to die the next time this happens.
I don't mention it either. I'm not ready. I knew I had a problem, but I thought I had it under control. I didn't.
I don't know how to comfort my sister, to promise her it won't happen again, so I say, "I know."
"Cass has been staying with her parents," she says. "Do you think you should offer her a room here?"
Huh?
"It's a big place," she says. "And it could be good for you to have someone around."
It could. It would. Probably, I need a sobriety companion. An actual babysitter. But I don't say that. I say the wrong thing. "You don't trust me?"
"I do."
My shoulders soften. My throat relaxes. All those ugly thoughts screaming you're a piece of shit slow down. Her trust is the only thing I want. It outshines everything else. "Thanks."
"She needs it too," Daphne says. "I mean, you know her parents. Her dad especially."
Her dad hates me, yeah. But, of course, that's not what she's talking about. The world doesn't revolve around me.
Cassie's dad is uptight about addiction… and everything else. He pretends he's a relaxed guy, but he's high-strung. He works too much. He expects a lot from his kids.
But then Cassie is a model daughter. It's hard to imagine she's ever disappointed her parents.
"He's difficult, sure." That doesn't mean she should stay here. That's a bad idea for both of us.
"What if you had to live with Mom and Dad?" she asks.
"I have lived with Mom and Dad." I'm in their house right now. It's just this is their summer house. At any minute, they could decide to come here to crash my non-party.
"Exactly."
Point taken. But—"Cassie hates me. She'd rather stay with her parents."
"Aren't you working together?" Daphne asks. "It's kind of a romantic idea, isn't it? Locking yourselves in a house together until you finish a project?"
If you've never tried it, yeah, it sounds fun. In reality? Not so much. But I appreciate Daphne's passion. She loves music even though she doesn't know anything about it. "I'll consider it. Really."
She nods with understanding.
I don't add the thing is, Cassie is way too sexy, and I don't trust myself around her. "She can stay another night if she wants."
"Of course she can. We're having a slumber party. Do you want to join for ice cream or boy talk?"
"Which one is the part where you watch the rest of The Matrix trilogy?"
"All of it." Daphne laughs, and for a minute, things are easy again. We're kids without all these big, heavy problems. Then she shifts to the sister who's afraid I'm about to fall off a cliff. "Did you start the song?"
"It's an album," I say. "And we have to pitch our take first. Then, we have to convince the artist to hire us. Then we're going to write at his house all weekend." Most likely, we'll put together a few songs before the pitch, then another before the weekend. We need to go in prepared. But we need to agree on a vision. "But, yeah, I started researching his work."
My sister glances at the guitar on the bed. "How come you inherited all the musical talent?"
Because I also inherited Dad's fucked-up brain. But I'm not going there. No, if I want to convince my sister I can handle this ruse slash creative team-up, I need to keep the conversation light. "'Cause you got the good looks."
"Oh yeah, women hate tall guys. And those blue eyes." She sticks out her tongue in a gesture of mock disgust. "The color of the ocean. Gross. Right?"
"The muscles too." I nod. "They say it's too much."
She smiles, but there's a sadness to it. She can't quite fall into our usual sibling banter. "Are you ready for dinner? Cass made lasagna."
