First, I’d told Halle about my dumpster fire of a career and that I was basically homeless.
And now I’d told her about my sister.
I should know that wasn’t how flings worked.
Hook-ups didn’t usually involve conversation.The point was just to fuck.And if you did need to talk out of politeness, the topics were supposed to be superficial.Y’know, like the weather, what was on TV or…
Now that I thought about it, I had no idea because most of the time I preferred theone and donesituations.
It’d been a while since I last fooled around, but as far as I remembered, I’d ask their names, whether they’d had fun, if they needed me to call them a cab and that was it.So I couldn’t understand why I suddenly kept sharing shit with Halle that I’d promised myself I’d keep locked up and not talk about with anyone again.
We were having a good time and now everything would get awkward.She’d feel bad and worry what to say and I’d feel bad about the fact that she felt bad.
I needed to find a way to stop spilling my guts to this woman.
‘Fuck.’ Halle froze.‘I’m so, so sorry.I’d love to hear about her if it’s not too painful to talk about.’
Wait, what?
That was the last thing I expected her to ask.
Sure, I knew that Halle would be sympathetic.She was kind and considerate.She cared about people.And I knew she cared about me.
But normally if I mentioned anything about my sister passing, people would clam up or change the subject.I understood why.It was hard to know the right thing to say and instead of saying the wrong thing, people assumed it was better to say nothing at all.
There was no one right way.We all deal with grief differently, so trying to change the subject would probably work best for most people.Hell, when it first happened it felt way too raw to talk about at all.Every day that I woke up I just hoped it was a bad dream.
Now though, even though it still felt like someone had taken a knife to my heart when I thought about what happened to her, I wanted to talk about her.I wanted her memory to live on.
I wanted people to know how amazing she was.
When I glanced at Halle, she had such sincerity in her eyes.She genuinely wanted me to talk about my sister.
Wow.
Halle didn’t realise it, but somehow she’d said exactly the right thing.It was like she already knew me so well that she understood what I needed before I did.
‘She was incredible,’ I said, my face lighting up as I pictured her smile.‘Her name was Minerva, but we called her Minnie because she was petite and cute like Minnie Mouse.’
‘Ahhhh…’ Halle said, like she’d just solved a puzzle.‘Is that why you have that tattoo on your back?’
‘Yeah,’ I nodded.‘I… the numbers, that’s her date of birth and I put it on my back, not just because I wanted to have the tattoo somewhere private where it wasn’t easily visible, but because Minnie always had my back.Even though she was my baby sister, she always looked out for me.’
‘That’s really lovely.’
‘Thanks.I always looked out for her too, when we were kids.Everyone at school knew not to mess with her or they’d have me to deal with.’
‘I can totally see you as the overprotective older brother.’ The corner of her mouth turned up into a reassuring smile.
‘Yep.I played the role well back then.Just a shame that I failed her when we got older.’ My voice trailed off and my chest tightened as all the painful memories flooded back.Maybe I wasn’t ready to talk about it after all.
‘I’m sure that’s not true.’ Halle rested her hand on my shoulder.
‘If I wasn’t so hell-bent on being successful, she’d still be here.’
‘I don’t understand.Why would you be responsible?’
I blew out an exasperated breath.I needed to tell Halle the whole story.
