“Thank you, Amy. You’ve helped so much.” The house has a white door and warm light coming through the window.
“I love you, Wesley.” Her voice is so strong, so clear, like she’s standing right beside me, and it hurts my heart that we don’t say those words to each other enough.
“I’m not going off to war,” I joke but the laugh dies on my lips. Because the thought of going into a home filled with the same pain, worry, grief that I know so well feels like a battle. One that I’ve lost before.
“I love you, too.”
I make my legs move up the flagstone path and onto a wooden porch. I raise my hand, bringing my fist down onto the door in three slow, morose-sounding knocks. The house is so quiet and I wonder if no one is here. Maybe they’re at the hospital.
I raise my arm, ready to knock again, when the door swings open. An older version of one of the teenage twins from the photo in Corrine’s living room faces me. His blond hair is short and already thinning and his shoulders fill the span of the doorway.
“Hi. I’m... I’m here to see Corrine.”
He stares at me like how the Terminator might look at Sarah Connor. He closes the door. From behind it he shouts, “Corrie! It’s for you.”
Corrie.I tuck this morsel of information away. Her family calls her Corrie but I’ve only ever thought of her as Corrine. I imagine a smaller Corrine being chased by her little brothers, shouting her nickname after her,Corrie! Corrie!
Corriefeels like a gift, a treasure after what already feels like too long without her. The house is quiet again. Until the door opens. And she’s an arm’s length away.
Her hair is down, falling past her shoulders, and she’s always beautiful like this. She seems tired, like she’s been crying. There’s no makeup on her face and she’s pale and small, and not just because she’s wearing a sweater three sizes too big, with the sleeves rolled up.
I open my mouth, ready to apologize and explain, but I can’t because my arms are filled with her. Her mouth covers mine, her tears wet my cheeks. I forget my words. I wrap my arms around her. I don’t let go.
Chapter 44: Corrine
Minnesota doesn’t make Chamberses. Massachusetts does. It makes no sense that he is here, but here Wesley Chambers is. In Minnesota.
For a brief moment I consider that the stress of quitting my job and getting to my mother and ending my relationship with Wesley has left me delirious, but my arms are too full for this to be a hallucination. It’s the smell that clinches the reality of him, like a warm spot of sunshine through a window, clean laundry, and a hint of cinnamon toothpaste.
I didn’t know they made cinnamon toothpaste until I started kissing Wesley Chambers regularly.
This smell, this weight in my arms, takes me back to the too few memories of waking up next to him, inhaling him like he’s air.
“I can’t believe you’re here,” I say into the fabric of his wrinkled gray T-shirt.
Until my mother got sick, I never realized being the “strong older sister” meant when our family matriarch was in the hospital I’d have to be the one to hold the rest of them up. They’re not just heavy physically.
The weight of their grief is crushing me.
Not only have I been supporting them emotionally while they cried beside our unconscious mother’s hospital bed. All I’ve done is cook, clean, and comfort since I got home. But there’s been no one to comfort me.
Family surrounds me but I’ve been so utterly alone.
“You’re here.” The words crumble around my sob. He’s here and I’m not alone anymore. I hate that I’m crying and I hate that I need him. I’m not supposed to need anyone but as I grip his thin canvas jacket in my fist and catch a glimpse of his red-and-orange socks I can’t bring myself to care much. IneededWesley in this moment and heknew.
“What are you doing to my sister?” Sebastian asks.
I lift my head from the wet spot I’ve created on Wesley’s chest. At some point he’d closed the door, sat at the wooden bench in our small foyer, and pulled me into his lap.
I scramble off him like we’ve been caught doing much worse than holding each other.
“I’m Wes.”
He stands, too, offering his hand to Sebastian. After a moment of suspicious frowning, Sebastian takes it. The couch groans and the hardwood floor creaks as John and James join us from the living room. The television still blares but at least they’re off their designated spots on the couch and Sebastian has risen from the kitchen table, where he’s nursed the same cold cup of coffee all day.
“What’s he doing here?” Sebastian directs his question at me.
“He’s...”
