“Can you take me to Mom’s, actually?” I need the feeling of home and some space from Mercer. I love her. She’ll always be my closest friend. I just need to sort through my feelings before we sleep under the same roof.
My brother doesn’t answer, just makes a quick u-turn. His warm voice breaks through the noise of the rumbling engine a few minutes later. “How are you coping, Sis?”
“I’m…” How am I? I’ve felt hollow and robotic all day. It’s like the emotional side of my brain closed for business and only the essential employees came in to work—heart pumping, lungs breathing, eyes seeing.
But now that I’ve taken in the damage from the fire, my feelings are slamming around inside me like debris in a tornado. I feel guilty that I wasn’t there to stop it. Angry at Mercer for letting it happen. Annoyed at Anders for being flippant about it. Equally frustrated and terrified that the only thing in my life that I have any control over—our home and our family legacy—is a sooty, soggy mess because I left for one weekend. Still somehow pining for Anders. Disappointed in myself for pining for Anders when my life is embers.
“I’m okay.”
Joe doesn’t respond, but I sense his scowl coming from the driver's seat. He makes a turn or two in the wrong direction despite my protests, before pulling into a familiar driveway. He parks under a story-high neon sign of a guy carrying a hamburger and wearing roller skates.
“You need to eat.” He cranks down his window and the breeze coming into the cab is chilly. “And I’m going to take a little treat to Indie. She’s been alone all day.”
A familiar ache pinches in my chest. Joe and Indie are so perfect for each other. They support and encourage each other. They make each other better. They think about each other’s needs. Is it unreasonable to want what they have?I don’t think I’m asking for much, Universe.
“Geez. You doing okay?” Joe asks with a sidelong look.
“What?”
“That sigh. That’s the sigh of someone who needs a punching bag, or like I’m going to be your punching bag,” he jokes with his usual crooked grin.
I didn’t even realize I had sighed. “Sorry. Just thinking.”
“About?”
Joe has always been a fantastic listener, sometimes against his will. It’s one of the many perks of having a bunch of sisters. That’slucky for me, because the words start spewing out of me like he dropped a Mentos in a bottle of Coke.
“My life. It is such a wreck. I accidentally fell in love with Anders, even though we’re completely wrong for each other. We’re opposites. He wants kids, and—well, you know. Plus, his life is too chaotic for someone like me. We just don’t make sense.” I unbuckle my seatbelt to make room for the fried food I’m about to annihilate. “That’s mess number one. On top of that, the only thing in my life that I have going for me, Nizhóní, literally caught on fire when I left it alone for one weekend. I feel like a failure for that, even though logically I know that’s ridiculous. And you know what?” I’m picking up steam now. “I finally did something fun for myself for the first time in my life, and I liked it. I had fun. Sunny Pratt did something crazy, and out of the ordinary, andfun. And look how it turned out.”
“Mom said you tiled a bathroom.”
“I took a plane to tile a bathroom in Minnesota.” My loud voice echoes under the neon hamburger man.
He laughs. “Minnesota? Wow. In that case…”
While he’s laughing at me, a skinny teenage boy skates up to the window to take our order. We get a lot of food—I think we’re both comfort eating tonight—and when it arrives, I munch my hamburger in silence while Joe drives me home. He won’t eat without Indie, which is both sweet and irritating. I’m working through the last of my fries when he pulls in front of my mother’s house.
“All right, I’ve been thinking.” He wrangles the gear shift into park. “Do you want my input?”
I swallow and take a long swig of my Coke. “Of course.” I appreciate that he asks and doesn’t just dump his opinions all over me this time. His fiancée has been good for him.
“I won’t weigh in on Anders because I hardly know the guy, except for what I’ve heard. You’re smart. Trust your instincts on that.” I can tell the words are a challenge for him to say. He slings his handover the steering wheel and turns to face me. “But as far as the stuff with Nizhóní goes—”
Here we go. I brace for the lecture. All of the mental flogging I’ve done today runs through my mind: I’ve been irresponsible, I’m ruining the family business, I should be delivering hamburgers on roller skates, and repeat.
“The fire was not your fault. It had nothing to do with you leaving and everything to do with Mercer being a bonehead. You’re allowed to take a weekend off. We’ll fix it and be up and running in no time. It’s not as bad as it seems.”
“You sound like Anders,” I say with an immature eye roll.
“Well, he’s right. It’s repairable. No one was hurt.”
“Yeah, it’s repairable. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt.” My voice cracks and I can’t say anything else. I don’t want to cry, but my eyes are hot and my throat feels tight.
“Why does it hurt?” Now he sounds like the bossy older brother I remember from my childhood.
The frank question rattles me so much, I spit out an answer before I think about it. “Because it’s all that’s left of him!” I don’t remind him that since I won’t have a family of my own, this is it for me. “It’s all I have. And I’m failing.”
“Sunny.” His hand lands on my shoulder, and his voice is firm. “The place isn’t Dad, and you are not a failure. Do you think Mom and Dad never made mistakes or had setbacks? They did. Do you think they never took time off? They did. And do you think Dad would want you to beat yourself up like this?”
