"It's unsettling," I said. "There are moments when I'm lost in myownlife."
She gave me aYeah, tell me about itsmirk.
"The biggest adjustment for me was going from teaching to opening a school. I was convinced that I was going to fuck it all up. That the people who'd put me in charge would realize I wasn't qualified, and it wouldbeover."
"Every damn day," Imurmured.
"And Matthew, he rearranged everything. Invited himself in, made room for himself, got cozy, and announced he'd be staying a while." She blinked at that, shaking her head just a bit, like my brother had been a crafty little wrecking ball with his unbelievable charm. "It didn't take long to realize he was—is—it for me. It took longer to get a grip on everything else, and I couldn't see what was right in front of me because I'd been in survival mode." She shrugged. "I had to get past all of that other stuff before I could focus on anything—oranyone—else."
Lauren tore the corner off another croissant and popped it in her mouth, all while shooting me expectant glances. She didn't have to announce that she was waiting on some details about myshambles.
"Lauren," I started, feeling the pressure build in my chest, "I have to tell yousomething."
"Anything."
The words were right there on my tongue, but I practiced one last time. I wasn't sure whether I was trying to get them straight or confirm I actually wanted to say them. Then I blinked at the whitewashed bakery and the passing foot traffic outside, and the reality of what I was doing—professing my once-rampant love for my brother's wife—brought everything to a breathless halt. I expected to find pieces of me scattered about, cups and jars filled with every twisted urge I'd ever felt because I couldn't say I owned them anylonger.
They didn't own meeither.
And then—oh, motherfucking hell,what am I doing?—I couldn't tell her anything. Holy fuck, no. Not as it pertained to my feelings for her. Those feelings, they hadn't been real. Not real in the way my feelings for Alexwerereal.
I gulped. But there was one thing I needed to say. Something she needed to know. "Do you remember the night myfatherdied?"
She dropped her hands to her lap and sat back. "Uh, yeah. Ofcourse."
"I never—" I stopped, blinking away the vision of him in that hospital bed. Plugged full of tubes, machines living for him, dead by mostdefinitions.
But that night, he'd been more alive to me than he'd ever been. Or, morehuman. He'd been frail. Not the tempest of grief-hate and misplaced rage and liquor that he'd been as far back as my memories could reach. On the night he'd died, he hadn't been a monster butaman.
One who had to account for his good and his evil the same aseveryoneelse.
One who'd fought like hell to leave the world a littleworseoff.
One who'd seriously underestimated our ability to recover from his abuse, with spite as our primarymotivation.
"I never thanked you," I said, gazing into her eyes. I was finding I could do that now without fear—or hope?—that she'd see every one of my secrets, right there treading water. "For helping all of us say goodbye. For staying with him whilehedied."
She lifted her shoulders and let them fall like she shepherded fucked-up families through taking their fathers off life supporteveryday.
"Of course," she said gently. "That night put a lot of things in perspective for me. It forced me to see that all of my issues werebullshit."
I barked out a laugh. "Does that make my issuesbullshit,too?"
She hummed as she went for more croissant. "Maybe. Do they feel likebullshit?"
"I've put a lot of fucking energy into these issues," I argued. "If they are bullshit, I've wasted a fuck-tonoftime."
"Just know that it's tough to kick your own ass, so you'll have to get over itinstead."
"Noted," I said, laughing. "But seriously, Lauren. What you did that night—" I swallowed around a throb ofemotion.
She'd stood in that room with me, surrounded by the hospital awfulness, and she'd held my hand while I'd listed everything terrible my father had ever done to me. All the times he'd taken a belt to me because I couldn't speak properly. The times he'd told me I was stupid, worthless, nothing. That my mother had never wanted me, and he certainly hadn't either. The fists he'd raised until I'd outsized him and started hittingrightback.
Then I'd told him that shit was going with him to the grave because those charges were on his tab,notmine.
Part of me had expected the miserable bastard to claw his way out of that brain-dead coma to call me a useless turnip one last time. It hadn't happened. The steady hiss and beep of the machines keeping his blood warm had been the only response. I'd promptly lost all of my shit once I'd known the shackles of my father's hateful resentment were gone. Lauren had been there, holding me while I'd cried on hershoulder.
"What you did that night, it was important," I said. "Thankyou."
