“He hasn’t exactly asked me to stay.” She straightened her slim shoulders. “Anyway, it’s my life. My business. I have to figure this out for myself.”
I nodded, because, really, what could I say?
“Enough about Trey. What’s up with you and Farm Boy?”
I flushed and stirred my yogurt. “Nothing. He went with me to the opening.”
“Meg said you were kissing at the restaurant.”
“That wasn’t... I wasn’t... I have a boyfriend. Colt.”
Amy pursed her lips, looking, for a moment, remarkably like Aunt Phee. “Well, Colt can definitely help you more, career-wise.”
I winced. “You make it sound like I’m using him.”
“Please. You won the guy a Grammy. I’m just saying, maybe you’re using each other. He fits into your life. The life you want.”
“Or I fit into his.”
Amy looked at me with her keen blue artist eyes that saw so much and gave away so little. “What does that mean?”
I floundered, taken aback by her directness. “I hate being on the road.”
“But you love Colt.”
“He’s so wonderful. I can never deserve him.”
Amy frowned. “That’s bullshit. He loves you. He chose you.”
“Sometimes I wonder if he loves me or if he just wants my songs.” If he still wanted my songs. Checking my phone had become a kind of compulsion.
Amy looked at me kindly. “And what do you want?”
I don’t know, I almost said. But my sister deserved a better answer than that.
And maybe I did, too.
“I want to write songs.”Realsongs, that told the truth. That told my story. I swallowed hard. Or at least... “I want to feel...”Safe. “Loved, I guess. I want what Mom and Dad had. Or what I thought they had. I want a home, a place I belong, like Meg and John, and a guy who looks at me the way Eric looks at Jo.”
“You want to be seen.”
I nodded. But did I really? “To be accepted,” I said. With all my flaws and secrets.
Amy sighed. “Me, too.”
I smiled. “Your old nickname.”
“Yeah.” She smiled back crookedly. “Seems we’re both still comparing ourselves to our sisters.”
Defined by who we were not.
Shadows of Meg and Jo.
CHAPTER 22
Amy
I heard the car before I saw him, the red Ferrari muscling up the drive of the carriage house. When I went downstairs, Trey was leaning against the driver’s-side door, wearing Wayfarers and leather Rainbows, another perfectly pressed button-down shirt untucked over khaki shorts. My heart sighed and flopped at his feet like Polly displaying herself for a belly rub.
