My chest is too small for my pounding heart, and my limbs turn to jelly. Explaining things with Sawyer would mean opening up abouteverything.
The thought makes me nauseous. Neither of my sisters knows the half of what really happened all those years ago. Not with Sawyer, and not what was going on at home. I’d done everything I could to shield Mara from it, and I’d done everything I could to hide it from Gia, ensure she wouldn’t abandon the life she was building to come take care of us.
Telling them now will only induce guilt. But not telling them means holding on to all these secrets that have been simmering since I got back to Blue Ridge.
I probably already lost Sawyer tonight, I can’t stand to lose my sisters, too.
“Fine,” I cry.
My eyes start to sting with unshed tears. Mara pulls out a stool and guides me onto it before pouring a glass of wine and sliding it toward me.
I start from the beginning. Theverybeginning. I tell them about Sawyer’s relentless teasing, Squeakers, being taunted during presentations and at lunch, the night he drove me home in the freezing rain, those following few months when my crush blossomed, and prom.
I tell them what it was like at home, Gia’s face growing tenser with every word. Bailing Dad out, trying to keep the bills paid, struggling to keep Mara well-fed. How I could barely keep my head above water with all that and school.
Both my sisters look murderous when I move on to Christopher—the clandestine dates across town, the ensuing scandal at Everett Academy, why I moved here mid-year.
Voice shaky with emotion, I skip over to when Sawyer found me in the parking lot during the blizzard. His confession.
Mara belly laughs when I explain how I freaked out at the drive-in because he asked if she’d get him a matching pair of Bob Ross undies.
“It’s not funny!”
She bites her lip. “Sorry.”
“And tonight,” I say, “Dev and Tess were having such a good time. Sawyer was trying so hard to bring me into the fold. But I just couldn’t stop thinking how I didn’t belong.” Sniffling, I add, “I guess it’s a good thing I’ll be gonein a couple months.”
I’m a sponge, wrung out to the last drop, with nothing left to give.
“Bullshit,” Gia says.
I nearly spit out the sip of wine I just took. It’s the first time she’s spoken since I started talking. Mara interrupted with questions, but Gia just listened.
“This is about more than Sawyer.” Gia sighs and shakes her head. “I really failed you, didn’t I? I never should’ve left. At the time, I thought I was doing what was best for all of us, but I was thinking about the money. I had no idea about this other shit.” Her jaw tenses. “And now I see you haven’t moved past any of it.”
Her words pinch. “Yes, I have.” It was hard, but I pushed past the hurt of childhood.
“Clearly,” she says in a flat tone. “Before you came back to Blue Ridge, Mara and I would get some Christmas presents and the occasional phone call. I thought maybe you just didn’t want much to do with us.” My heart fractures, I never meant for them to think that. “But it’s not us. It’syou.”
I make a face. “Isn’t it, ‘It’s not you, it’s me’?”
“I said what I said. Just from the short time you’ve lived with me, I’ve seen you push everyone away. You don’t let people in.”
I don’t know what to say. Gia’s blunt words are razor-sharp.
She gives me anAm I wrong?look. “How many friends do you have, Brie?Realfriends, not acquaintances, people you know, or women you saw regularly at yoga while you were in Indy.Truefriends.”
My eyes shoot up to the ceiling to count my innumerable friendships, but she interrupts me.
“It’s a rhetorical question, Sis. The answer is zero.”
“You don’t know that.” It comes out petulant and childish.
“What are Dev’s hobbies?” It’s barely a question.
“Um—”
“How many men has Mara slept with?” Gia interrupts.
