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My hollow chest couldn’t bear the sound.
He almost laughed in disbelief, before his eyes settled on me and realized the seriousness of my own. “No, Penny. You can’t just drive down there in the middle of the night on your own. That’s almost an entire day of driving. Your adrenaline is spiking right now, but soon you’re going to become emotionally exhausted and you’ll never make it all the way down there. Plus, you’re not supposed to move in for another week and a half. And what about C–”
I cut him off before he could say his name. I couldn’t hear it. “I signed my lease as of the fifteenth, actually. I already have the keycode to get into the building. My apartment key is in a safe in my mailbox, and I have the code for that too. I could’ve moved in already but I was waiting…” I didn’t explain that I was waiting for him. Waiting for him because I hated the thought of having to spend three weeks apart from him. I had also hated the thought of paying a month’s worth of rent without actually being there, so we settled on a week apart. And I knew even that was going to hurt.
I almost laughed at that now because he’d probably never want to speak to me again. I might have laughed at the irony, if I wasn’t so close to crying.
“I’ll go with her.” It was Easton who appeared in the doorway now. Except, unlike my sister, he barreled straight into the room. Straight to me, crouching down to meet my face. “I’m so sorry. He said something about you having a tough year, about your ‘college stuff’” he brought his hands up, making quotations with his fingers, “and I assumed he knew. I was already upset that I had embarrassed you earlier, and I was just trying to make light of a heavy situation and I obviously made things worse. Please tell me he’s not still upset with you.”
My bottom lip trembled as I said, “I told him I cheated on my grad school application and that’s why I was expelled. I didn’t just withhold information. I made up something completely inaccurate.” I bit my lip, fighting back tears. “I was afraid he wouldn’t want to be with me once he found out I’d...” I couldn’t finish the sentence,had an affair with a married man. I couldn’t look at any of them as I spoke that truth. That grain of fear that had dissolved so deep into my gut I almost forgot it was there. “I was right. He doesn’t.” I blew out a shaky breath as emotion built behind my eyes once more. “He worked really hard to build trust between us, and I was lying the whole time. He has reason to hate me for it. All of it.”
Easton’s jaw went tight. His blue eyes crisp with glacial rage. “Seriously?” He turned to my father. “Were we having two separate conversations?” He shook his head, and through gritted teeth he muttered, “That’s bullshit.”
“He’d never hate you, Penelope. Trust me when I tell you that Carter would never, never, hate you,” my mom said.
Both of my siblings nodded in agreement.
“He asked me if he could marry you when you guys were about nine. I don’t think he fully understood what he was asking. I think he’d picked up somewhere the whole thing about asking a father’s blessing before proposing. I think he thought proposing meant asking someone to be your friend.” My dad laughed. “I don’t know. I told him to ask me again in twenty years.”
We all laughed at that. Then I felt the tears on my cheeks again as my soul broke right open in front of everyone.
That could have been us. That could’ve been real. He could’ve asked my dad to marry me at nine, and asked again at twenty-nine, and it would’ve been a moment straight out of one of those cheesy romance novels I hate so much. The ones about star crossed lovers, soulmates, and everything else repulsive. Except, I would’ve read that romance novel.
“You two will work things out, I am sure of it,” my mom whispered.
I shook my head. I wanted to agree. But in an attempt at preserving any part of my soul that could remain intact, my despair prevented me from finding hope.
“I should kick his ass,” Easton growled. “None of this is your fault. Do you understand that?None.”
“He’ll come around, Penny. I am sure of that. He just needs time. I am positive he’ll be over here tomorrow morning looking for you, if not sooner. Another reason you need to stay home.”
“Fuck that. We should go. Give him a little scare. He can crawl on his knees down to Los Angeles himself for all I care,” Easton muttered.
We all looked at Easton, astonished. Easton had been a stereotypically protective older brother when we were younger. In a way that he thought made him look more interesting to his friends. A way that inflated his ego when boys my age would cower from him. I’d never thought any of it stemmed from true care, though. Something in the tide had changed, whether because he felt responsible or because, for the first time ever, he noticed that I had actually allowed someone close enough to crush me, I wasn’t sure.
“Look, I really think you need to sleep on it. Give Carter a little time. It’s reckless to start a drive like that in the middle of the night, regardless of if Easton goes with you. Stay home tonight, and if by tomorrow you still want to leave, then I'll let you go.” My dad threw Easton a pleading look as if to stop encouraging me.
Easton nodded, and reluctantly, so did I.
I had no interest in sitting here and waiting for Carter to come around, mostly because a large part of me believed he wouldn’t. Or if he did, it would be to lay confirmation to all of the fear swirling in my gut right now. I didn’t want to be here to see any of it.
“You wanna sleep in my room tonight?” Maddie asked, as if she’d read my thoughts.
I shrugged as I stood up from my bedroom floor. Maddie disappeared into her room, as did Easton. Both of my parents pulled me into them. “We love you, Penny,” my father said.
I squeezed them both.
? ? ?
“Penelope…Penelope!” My eyes flashed open. Darkness. Cool darkness.
My sister stirred next to me, but her heavy breath told me she wasn’t the one whisper-shouting my name. My foot shook. I raised my head to find my brother standing at the foot of Maddie’s bed, arm outreached and gripping my toes. I could just make out his features in the approaching gray of dawn. “What?”
“Do you still want to go?”
I sat up, wiping my groggy eyes. Hazed with sleep and heartbreak. “Go?”
“L.A. Right now. If you still want to go, I’ll go with you,” he said. Maddie groaned as she turned over, now facing me but still appearing to be asleep. I ran a hand through my hair. “You shouldn’t have to sit around and wait for him to come to you.”
