“The funeral? Uh… depressing. And long.” I fidget with a lock of hair. “I kept shifting between being annoyed at what people said—like they didn’t have the right to grieve because they hadn’t lost as much as me—and wishing they’d keep talking about Mom and Dad, because it felt like it kept them alive a little longer.”
I glance down at my hands, twisting them in my lap. “And after, I just felt… empty. Like I’d lost any sense of purpose. There wasn’t the funeral to keep up appearances for anymore, and I was completely… alone.”
Shit. Way to make it easier for him.
I quickly backtrack. “But it probably won’t be the same for you.” His gaze stays steady on me, and I catch the faintest glint of amusement in his expression. “Because I’ll be there. If, um, you want me to. And I’ll do what I can to help.”
“No,” he says, his expression darkening in an instant. “I don’t want you to go.”
I swallow, looking away. “Oh. O-okay.”
Great. Now I feel like an idiot for offering.
“Because I won’t go either.”
I turn to him again. He won’t attend his dad’s funeral? My mind stumbles over the thought. Rafael Gray skipping his saintly father’s funeral would be the talk of the town for years. “Are you sure that’s what you want?”
“You think it’d be terrible of me.”
“No, I don’t. All that crap about funerals helping with closure is just that—crap. You shouldn’t go if you don’t want to.”
His fingers pause their drumming, and for the first time since we started this conversation, his shoulders seem to relax. He pauses, as if testing the thought out in his mind. “Can I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“Why were you alone?” he asks, turning his head just enough to look at me. His gray eyes are steady, almost too clear. “I mean, after the funeral. Your brother went to live with your grandparents, right? Why didn’t you?”
“Uh…” I laugh, a humorless sound that echoes uncomfortably in the quiet car. “Depends who you ask. My brother thinks I abandoned him. According to my grandparents, I preferred my own space.”
“Well, I’m asking you.”
“I…” My throat tightens, and I clench my hands into fists in my lap, nails digging into my palms. “I never felt welcome with my grandparents.”
He frowns, his brows pulling together as he waits for me to continue.
“I’m not actually related to them,” I say eventually. “Drew adopted me when I was two, but they never really saw me as a granddaughter.”
“I didn’t know he wasn’t your biological father.”
“He might as well have been,” I say, rubbing my hands together. “No one knew. It didn’t matter to him, and it didn’t matter to me.”
“But it matters to your grandparents.”
“Not that they’d ever admit it.” I press my nails harder into my palms. “But they never liked my mom. And she was the one driving the car that…” My words falter, and I swallow hard, my throat thick. “It wasn’t her fault, of course, but they only saw it as confirmation of what they already believed: My mom was a bad seed, and I was part of her.”
“So when your mom and dad died, they sent you packing?”
“They kept insisting Iwantedto be independent,” I say with a bitter edge. “Craved to ‘spread my wings’ and ‘head into the world on my own.’ It became a little statement for me to parrot, and every time someone asked, I’d say that I’ddecidedto live in the house. That Iwantedto drop out of college, take over my parents’ mortgage, bounce through minimum-wage jobs.”
“But you didn’t.”
“No. What I wanted was every bit of family I could catch.”
His fingers brush mine as he moves his hand from the emergency brake. He cups my hand like he’s holding something fragile, yet also like he’s afraid I’ll slip away if he doesn’t hold tight enough. It’s such a simple thing, but it drags all the restless, darting pieces of my thoughts into something still that makes me feel uncomfortably exposed. As if he’s touching more than just my hand and has reached into that place I keep locked up tight.
“I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay. I mean, I talk to them every few weeks, and my brother texts back sometimes, so…”
