“Yeah, fuck. What the fuck were you thinking?”
She pulls up short and digs through her purse. “Why are we stopping here?”
“Because I need to order a fucking Uber. I didn’t have a car, and your car is MIA.”
“It’s at the airport,” I tell her.
She huffs. “One more thing to deal with.”
“I’ll have one of the guys drop me off there later.”
She ignores me, tapping away at her phone screen.
“I know we need to talk,” I say, “but can I shower and eat something before you tell me what a complete disappointment I am?”
“Yup.”
It takes several minutes for the rideshare to arrive. We spend the time standing side by side in silence.
No matter how hard I try, I can’t stop thinking about Savannah. I haven’t seen her in three days. She probably hates me. I don’t blame her. I hate myself.
She’s better off without me. They’d all be better off without me. My sister included.
Cora doesn’t even sit in the back of the car with me when it pulls up. I settle behind the passenger seat, my head against the window, and she gets in the front and keeps up a friendly conversation with the driver the whole way.
When we pull up to my house, I take in the façade of the place that, only a few days ago, I thought we’d raise a family in. I thought we’d be engaged this week. That when my sister arrived, we’d celebrate. That we’d be planning a wedding.
Maybe she’s here. Maybe she didn’t leave when I told her to go home.
With a burst of hope, I stagger out of the car and take the steps two at a time. I type in the code for the front door and throw it open.
“Savannah? Baby girl?” I rush past the kitchen. “Savannah?” Upstairs, I dart down the hall toward my bedroom. When I pass the open door to the guest room, I pull up short, and the pieces of my shattered heart disintegrate further. Because the room that was filled with all her boxes is completely empty.
She’s really gone.
“She’s not here,” Cora says when she finds me still standing in the empty bedroom.
I nod.
“What happened?” Her voice is soft. Too kind. I don’t deserve it.
Head hanging, I squeeze my eyes shut, fighting back the tears.
She cups my shoulder and squeezes. “Go shower. I’ll order lunch, and then you can fill me in. We’ll figure this out.”
“There’s no figuring this out.” I cough out a painful laugh. “Tara ruined everything. And then I pissed all over it and lit it on fire.”
“I can’t believe she’s Tara’s daughter,” Cora says for probably the fifth time since I finished telling her the whole sordid story.
“So you’ve said.” I take a bite of the burger my sister had delivered and bite back a moan. Fuck, that’s good.
“So how are you going to fix this?”
I freeze mid-chew and snap my head up. “Fix what?”
“Your relationship with Savannah. You went off the deep end when you found out, right? And now she’s pissed at you? So how are you going to fix it?”
“She’s Tara’s daughter. There is no fixing it.”
