Alexis scooted across the couch. She looked at me for a long time. And even though I meant to turn my head to meet her gaze, I didn’t.
I thought there was a chance she’d put her head in my lap. And maybe I would get to stroke her hair. The image came to me in a rush: closeness between sisters. But she stopped an inch from me and rested her head on the couch cushion instead.
My hand rested near the crown of her head. I could run the pads of my fingers over her temple, push back her hair, twist it into a loose braid, like when we were little.
But my hand was frozen. I couldn’t move it.
This is why I avoided thinking about Dad. I’d spent sixteen years with Richard and Elise Stone, the King and Queen of Marriage. I’d believed in forever and a day, a love bigger than death. But then my father had gone and disproved the concept of unconditional love. Obviously, if he could kick my mother to the curb, he could do it to me. And if your ownfathercould leave you, any man could.
Alexis was more forgiving. Or more gullible. Within months of our parents’ divorce, she was speaking to Dad again, talking about his new wife, Michelle, like she was part of the family, going to their home in San Antonio for the holidays.
So that was how it was for eleven years. The new normal. Mom, me, Alexis, and a wide gulf of icy silence separating me from Dad.
Then, two years ago, everything changed. I woke one morning to Alexis screaming on the other end of the phone that Dad had been in a car accident and he was dead. He’d been on his way to the grocery store for a gallon of milk, and someone T-boned him at an intersection. Instant death. Over a stupid twenty-minute errand. He was lactose-intolerant, so the errand hadn’t even been for him. It had been for Michelle. Slain in an act of thoughtfulness for his new wife.
It wasn’t a thing I liked to talk about, even with my family. Even with my best friends.
Because what would I say? That my dad died thinking I hated him? If I said I regretted my years of punishing silence—if I admitted I’d made the wrong choice, not forgiving him like Alexis—then the following had to be logically true: my stubborn anger had cost me the last years of my father’s life, and there was nothing I could ever do to get him back.
I’d had adad—warm hugs when I was scared and two steady hands on my shoulders when the training wheels came off and tears of pride at graduation. And then I’d lost him. And now, for the rest of eternity, he and I would remain broken. There was no going back, no mending, no last shot at redemption. There never would be, and it was all my fault.
If I admitted that, I would never forgive myself.
Alexis shifted on the couch. A few strands of her hair brushed my knuckles.
Suddenly, I wanted to hug my sister. I had this memory of lying next to her in bed when we were young, reading bedtime stories, our small bodies curled together, shoulder to shoulder. I wanted that again. But I was scared, or nervous, or something I didn’t have the words for. And that something kept my limbs still.
There was a chance something was wrong with me, like Ben said. Ben, who didn’t know my dad had died since we’d last seen each other. Ben, the man for whom I’d taken on my father’s role, the cheater, in a messed-up little twist.
It was better not to talk about any of this. There was nothing I could do, so better not to open it up. Better to take another deep inhale of this joint and wait for the feelings to melt away.
The doorbell rang, and I practically jumped out of my skin.
“Please tell me you ordered pizza,” Alexis groaned. “I’m starving.”
I hopped up, grateful for the interruption in my train of thought, and ran to the front door. Sitting on my doormat were two brown bags—the first full of pink rosé bottles that rattled when I moved it, and the second crammed with every kind of chocolate from the grocery store: Hershey’s and Reese’s and Snickers and M&M’s.
There was a note on top of the chocolate bag. I unfolded it.
TO LEX: SOME SUPPLIES FOR YOUR WEEKEND. KEEP YOUR CHIN UP. NO GROWN MAN WORTH HIS SALT STILL UPDATES HIS RELATIONSHIP STATUS ON FACEBOOK.
TO THE OTHER STONE SISTER: I SUPPOSE I’M GLAD YOU DIDN’T DIE ON A SCOOTER. IT WOULD HAVE MEANT A LOT OF PAPERWORK.
The note was unsigned, but scrawled in Ben’s slanted, all-caps handwriting. Unmistakable as a fingerprint.
What was he playing at, being thoughtful and generous? We’djusttalked about not blurring the lines between friendship and rivalry, and here he was, blurring. Well, it wasn’t like some principles over Ben’s zigzag was going to stop me from eating this candy. I dragged both bags inside.
Alexis appeared beside me and peeked into the bags, then clutched her hands together like a rom-com heroine presented with a diamond ring. “Forme?”
“Yep. From Ben, our gentle stalker.”
Alexis tore into a Snickers and shoved it in her mouth, very ladylike. “Remind me why you two aren’t dating?”
“Because I destroyed his life—and he isveryuninterested in a repeat. And because he has a girlfriend. Remember Sarah?”
She waved. “Oh, her.” That was a rather cavalier attitude for someone who’d recently been cheated on. A zealous look was creeping into Alexis’s eyes. I could smell a breakup project.
Better nip it in the bud. “Because Ben used the last five years to become an actual adult, and I’m still me. We live on two different planets.”
