I shrug, smiling coyly as I move to grab another box. “Maybe I just really enjoy stocking shelves with you.”
“Unlikely. Spill…” She follows me toward the supply closet and waits outside in the hall.
“You first,” I say. “What’s got you all…pent up?”
She sighs, closing her eyes as if she cannot believe the words she’s about to say. “I…I nearly kissed Aleks. Well, I thought about it. Well, healmostkissed me, I think. I don’t know.”
I open my mouth, shut it, reevaluate, then open it again. “Okay, and that’s…” I study her blank expression. “Bad?”
“No,” she says, slumping down the wall until her butt hits the floor. “It’s not.”
“So why—”
“Because he’s Aleks.”
“Ah, annoying,” I say, filling in the blank as I nod.
“What? No.” She glares up at me, shaking her head. “No, shut the fuck up.”
“Well then what? He’s literally the nicest human I’ve ever met other than Sef, so what’s the problem?” Other than Prue too, come to think of it.
“Exactly.” She points to my chest. “He’snice.”
I take a moment to appreciate my newfound fondness for that word, then continue. “And you don’t want nice?”
She pinches the bridge of her nose, leaning the back of her head onto the wall. “No, I do. I’m supposed to, right?”
I gently drop the box to the floor at her feet and move to sit next to her. “You’re worried that he’stoonice for you.”
“Yeah,” she whispers. “Something like that.”
“Well, he is.” She slaps my chest with the back of her handbefore I have the chance to finish laughing. Winded, I go on. “Listen, it’s nothing against you. But we’re talking about Aleks here. He literally keeps a spider trap in his kitchen so he can release them outside. His grandma had to put a ban on DVD rentals because watchingMarley & Meruined hisentiresummer. He named his dog after Dolly Parton and wears nearly the same outfit every single day. He’s pure. He’s—”
“Nice,I know,” Nadia finishes. “Unlike me…” She looks up to the ceiling as her lips pucker into a pout. “I get it.”
I look her over, head to toe, my eyebrows notching together as I take in her visible disappointment. “Nads, you couldn’t afford to be nice.”
“What?” She turns to me, her eyes softer than I’ve ever seen.
“You couldn’t afford to be nice,” I repeat, sturdier. “Not in that house…Not with Mom and Dad the way they were. Not with us two idiots as your older brothers. Nice wouldn’t have helped you survive.”
My heart aches for my little sister, both the one in front of me now and the one I’d help mend over and over. She spent so many years trying to be older than she was—making breakfasts, mending fences, helping around the house as best she could. For a while, she tried to earn the affection of our parents the only way she knew how—by making herself less and less of a burden and by being ever so helpful.
When that didn’t work, when they didn’t soften to her, she hardened. It seemed overnight, at the time. As if one morning I found a jaded teenager at my parents’ table in place of the sweet, helpful daughter they’d once had. But in hindsight, I can see how slow the transition actually was. How many years she spent trying to please them, throwing herself against a locked door time and time again, begging to be let in.
Idesperatelywish I could go back and tell that younger versionof Nadia that it was never her job to make herself lovable. That Mom and Dad just weren’t capable of it, no matter how much she tried. And, hell, she tried.
“I want to try to be now,” she whispers. “Now that I’m…” She sighs, from the deep hollow of her chest. Nadia looks away from me as I do the same, our eyes having briefly met for an uncomfortable second. “Why, if I’m out of that house and they’re out of my life…can I not—”
“Probably the same reason I can’t stand still for very long,” I say, interrupting. “We’re still protecting ourselves, I think. How we know best.”
“How did Nik make it out so normal?” She scoffs, drawing circles on the concrete floor with her finger.
“Because I had the two of you to worry about,” he answers, rounding the corner. “And, if I stopped doing that…I’d probably fall apart too.”
“Eavesdropping, are we?” I tease, as he moves to sit on the other side of Nadia. Together, we all stare at the blank wall across from us until the sun coming through the narrow, vertical windows far above us falls behind a cloud and comes back again.
“We’ve never really talked about it,” Nik states expectantly, sucking all the air out of the hallway. “Maybe we should.”
