“I’m aware my mother didn’t always do right by me. But she loved me, and she did her best. If her best hurt me in the end, I can’t bring myself to hate her for it.”
There’s a long silence, but I don’t look up. I don’t want to see whatever emotion is currently shining in Tristan’s eyes. No matter what it is, it won’t be good and that will only make me feel worse.
“Sam?” Reaching out with one hand, he takes hold of my shirt and tugs me closer. I go to him, wary but willing. His lips cover mine in a warm, comforting kiss before he pulls back. “For the record, I like how you’re different. Your weirdness is compelling to me. And you are worth every effort I will ever make, because of how amazing you are.”
I close my eyes, worried they might spring a leak if I think too much about his words. Instead, I clamber onto his lap and throw my arms around him.
We stay like that for ages, holding on to each other. I don’t feel better for having told him. All I feel is splayed open. Vulnerable and scared. But the soothing sounds he makes help settle the fear and, after a while, I manage to loosen my grip enough to slide onto the cushion beside him. I rest my head on his shoulder, enjoying the feel of his fingertips brushing across the back of my neck.
“What about your dad?” Tristan asks. “Where does he fit in?”
“I don’t have any memories of him. He left when I was two. We never heard from him again.” There isn’t much of a story there. “I don’t think about him. He has no right to my attention.”
Tristan murmurs his agreement, his fingers continuing their random journey on my skin. I snuggle in to him, my hand on his chest. I love the feel of his heartbeat against my palm, steady and reassuring and… getting faster.
My eyes open, but I don’t move. His breath deepens. He shifts a little in his seat.
“There must have been times when my father wanted to leave,” he says, his voice quiet in the stillness of the room. “Times when Mum did, too.” He stops talking, but his heart is still pounding. I flex my fingers against his chest. A small movement, to let him know I’m listening. “After Claire died, everything was… broken. We were all broken. But we all stayed, even when we didn’t want to.” He swallows hard. “It must count for something.”
Lifting my head, I sit up straighter beside him. “I can’t imagine how hard it was to lose a sister.” He doesn’t respond, but he threads his fingers through mine and holds on tight. “Were you close?”
“Not really, no.” He huffs out a laugh, but there’s no humour in it. Only sadness, loss, regret. “We were teenagers. She was my brat kid sister. I spent more time being pissed at Claire than anybody else in her life.” He’s talking faster now, louder. Using the conversational tone that shows up whenever the pain gets too close to the surface. “She was always bursting into my room without knocking and yelling at me for leaving dirty clothes on the bathroom floor. As if finding her soggy hair bands in the shower was any less disgusting. I hated the way she always tried to listen in on my private conversations with friends and the way she’d roll her eyes at my jokes. She was a thirteen-year-old pain in my arse and I told her so—happily and often.”
The rant cuts off. He falls silent. I wait.
“She was my sister.” These words are quieter. Strained. “I never would have hurt her. Not on purpose.”
More silence.
Lifting his hand, I curl it in to my chest. “Tris.” His gaze snaps to mine and the anguish I see there tears at me. “Tell me?”
His eyes are wide, the pupils dilated until there’s almost no brown around the black. “It was an accident,” he whispers. “I didn’t mean to.”
“What did you do?” I ask.
“I killed my sister.”
EIGHTEEN
______
TRISTAN
Some moments in life are so big in their smallness, they come to define who you are. Not just who you are in those few seconds or who you become from then on. They define all of you. Outside of that moment, you are nothing. You can be nothing. You barely exist.
It’s been years since I told anyone how Claire died. It’s not something I drop into casual conversation with acquaintances, and of the few people I’ve allowed close to me since it happened… only Walter got close enough.
So, yeah, it sounds odd now, to hear the words said out loud.
“I killed my sister.”
It’s not merely something I did. It’s who I am. My presence in the world reduced to a reflection of her absence. That’s all it will ever be.
“Tris.” Sam’s voice, so quiet beside me. His breathing is shallow, as if he’s afraid drawing too much attention to himself will break me further. “Will you tell me what happened?”
I look down at our joined hands. His palm is warm against mine, his grasp reassuring. Claire doesn’t have a hand to hold. I shouldn’t have one either. It’s not right, for me to have the things she missed out on. Not when I’m the one who took them from her.
I’ll have to end it, eventually, this thing with Sam. But before I do, I want him to know. Then, when we’re over, he’ll understand it’s not his fault. Our chance at happiness was negated long before we ever met.
