I was still here.
2
PJ
“He’s goingto be okay, Peanut. In fact, I think he’s better already.” My father gazed into his rearview mirror at me as we made our journey back to the Bronx from the rehab center. I met his gaze for a quick second and nodded.
“I shouldn’t have yelled at him like that.” I fixed my gaze on the highway whizzing by my window as I swallowed a sob. Since Jack had gotten hurt, I’d cried so much for him, the dehydration made me dizzy. Seeing him like that, helpless and frustrated and not at all the boisterous, smart-ass big brother I idolized, ate away at me. Of course, getting the initial call that he’d been critically injured, and riding to the hospital with my parents with the bone-chilling terror that we might have lost him had, most likely, taken a year or two off my life.
“I think that may have been exactly what he needed.” Mom craned her head and reached over to pat my bobbing knee. “You know your brother. Being babied by all of us made him feel even worse. You’ve never pulled punches with him. I think you were three the first time you told him off.”
An unexpected laugh escaped me. Despite our eight-year age difference, my brother and I were close. “Close” sometimes meant bickering to the point our parents would scream at us to shut up, but Jack was everything to me, and almost losing him rocked me to my core. It gutted me to see him suffer, and his injuries affected both his body and spirit. I prayed the damage wasn’t permanent, and today, after spotting a glimpse of the brother I knew, I was hopeful. For the first time since his accident, it seemed like he’d be okay, after all.
The only thing that soothed my nerves was daydreaming of punching his ex-girlfriend, Marina, in her perfect—and I suspected, surgically enhanced—nose and drawing blood. Who breaks up with their boyfriend immediately after surgery? They’d been dating for years, and I’d never been a fan, but hurting my brother when he was at his lowest made me want to tear her eyes out right out of the fake-lashes-lined sockets.
“He did seem in a much better mood when we left.” I sighed and crossed my arms before shifting toward the window.
“Your father is right. Jack will be fine, baby girl. He’ll be too tired to be in a bad mood.” Mom squeezed my leg and turned back around. “So, you can go and celebrate your eighteenth birthday without any worries. Your brother would be mad at you if you spent tomorrow night moping around worried about him.”
“But don’t celebrate too much.” Dad swiveled his head to me when traffic slowed. “Jack wouldn’t like that, either.”
I held in a giggle when Mom elbowed his ribs. Tomorrow, at eight thirty-seven a.m., I would turn eighteen. The most emotion I could muster for the occasion was a shrug. My friends insisted we all go to this trendy club in Westchester County a few miles outside the city, whereas I would have been happy with somewhere low key and local. My friends insisted on a big night out to celebrate not only my birthday, but the start of my new life.
I planned to spend the summer immersed in art, the one thing that made me forget all of my troubles. My mother ran a summer program at the school where she taught kindergarten, and for a few hours each day, I would teach art to the younger kids. I’d also signed up to work two nights per week at the paint studio where I’d been working part time since junior year. My goal was to be so busy I wouldn’t have even a moment to stop and think, and I prayed both jobs would make the summer fly by.
My plan was to leave New York and head to the University of San Diego. I had a full scholarship and should have been bursting at the seams: perfect weather, a free ride, and a chance to reinvent myself. Not that life was so bad here. I had a ton of friends, awesome parents, a brother who, despite all the grief he’d caused me as of late, loved me as much as I loved him.
But none of that mattered. Because someone elsedidn’tlove me. At least, not the way I loved him. Each day, the despair choked me a little more than the day before, and I couldn’t let it. I needed to get as far away from him as possible. Eventually, I’d forget him—but I anticipated “eventually” to be at least a decade. Maybe putting most of the country between us would help.
I had no choice but to try. I acted as thrilled and excited about it as I could without busting open a vein. Doubt about my decision plagued me on the daily. San Diego felt like running away rather than running toward something, and while looking ahead to school and my supposedly awesome new life, the rush of homesickness nauseated me. Every time I opened my mouth, I made sure to gush about leaving for the West Coast, but the forms for admission had laid on my desk for weeks. Why couldn’t I just fill out the forms and send them back?
Dad pulled into the driveway, nodding hello to the figure by our front door. It was funny how actively avoiding someone almost seemed to conjure them up. Moving far away had to at least fix that.
“Hey, Dylan.” My mom walked over to where he stood and gave him a hello kiss on the cheek. He’d been my brother’s best friend since … forever. Even before I was born. And although they were in their mid-twenties, Dylan and Jack still did everything together. Whether it was a family party or a quick stop by on a holiday, he waseverywhere. He’d lived with his mother and stepdad across the street until they’d moved to a smaller apartment. He stayed in the house and watched over their downstairs tenant. So even when he wasn’t around, he still was.
It was why falling in love with him was the single dumbest thing I’d ever done in my entire life.
Dylan gave Mom an easy smile, his full lips spreading and showing a sliver of perfect white teeth. When he turned to shake Dad’s hand, my eyes fell on the corded muscle of Dylan’s forearm and lingered there when he sifted his fingers through his short, but perfectly tousled black hair.
Beautiful. He was so fucking beautiful that gazing at him caused me visceral pain. It was moments like this when I wanted to pack my bags and race to LaGuardia Airport.
“Well, that’s a relief,” Dylan said after my parents told him about giving Jack a come-to-Jesus before we left him at the rehab center. “He’s strong; I have no doubt he’ll be back on that truck within the year.”
“We’ll see,” Dad said. “Right now, I hope he’s focused on getting up and moving. The rest’s all details.” He jerked his head at me. “Now, all I need to worry about is this one turning eighteen tomorrow.”
I rolled my eyes and headed for the door. My father liked to kid, but there was a lot of truth in those types of comments. No matter what my age would be tomorrow, my father would never see me as an adult.
My height and freckles came from my mother, but you could pick me out as Nick Garcia’s daughter from a mile away. We shared the same Puerto Rican olive skin and big dark eyes, although his eyelashes were much longer. Mom always cursed him for that.
I was close with both of my parents, but my best memories of growing up were always of my father. When I was little, I loved climbing onto his lap while we watched the Yankees or Giants together, not caring about the game or who won, just content having my favorite person in the entire world all to myself. Sometimes, we’d sneak off for pizza and ice cream only the two of us and we’d come home with a dozen drawings I’d scribbled on napkins.
I was high on his adoration for every silly creation I’d show him, and that carried into my teenage years. Mom and Jack would always tease how we were two peas in a pod, and they were right. My father was my best friend—my best friend who still thought of me as the tiny little girl I wasn’t anymore.
I’d never brought a boy over since I knew full well it would be my father’s every intention to run him off as I would forever be his “Peanut.” To him, I was seventeen going on ten.
Not that I was serious about anyone. I’d fooled around here and there, but there had never been anyone I was dying for my parents to meet.
Loving Dylan Matthews was a black cloud of sorrow that followed me all over the damn place.
