She lifts her chin. Her eyes are bloodshot, with dark shadows beneath them. She’s not wearing lipstick—unheard of outside the walls of our apartment—and her hair looks lusterless, like she resorted to dry shampoo instead of her usual morning wash.
I pull in a breath. Something’s definitely wrong.
The day our parents were killed, Tati and I were together. She’d come from Boston to stay with me while Mom and Dad were in Tampa, and she made what she called astaycationof our time together. We ate acai bowls daily, saw late-night movies, and spent long afternoons on the beach. She showed me how to put a heart-shaped sticker on my stomach so that later, when I left the sun’s warmth, I’d have a sort of inverse tattoo.
When the call came, we were back at the house, getting ready to pick up Gabi and go to dinner. My sister pressed her phone to her ear, listening raptly as the caller spoke, and then she collapsed onto the couch as if her muscles had turned to goo. She didn’t ask questions, and she didn’t cry. Her eyes becameterrifyingly vacant.
They’re the same now: unseeing, unfeeling.
“Tati, god. What happened?”
“Davis…I think we’re over.”
My stomach bottoms out.
But I should’ve expected this. The men Tati dates don’t stick around. Being with her is arduous, and she’s practically got a kid. She’s stunning, so dudes always try to make it work, at least for a while. But it turns out very few men are game to sign up for forever with a taxing woman and a bonus teenager.
Davis, though…he’s got a teenager of his own, and he’s so easygoing, a counterbalance to Tati’s rigidity. She’s been happier in the weeks they’ve been dating than I’ve seen her in our seven years of cohabitation.
“Youthinkyou’re over?”
“Last night…he drank a lot,” she explains. “And he wasn’t a fun,let’s go sing karaoke until two a.m.drunk. He was completely obnoxious. I had to pay for dinner because he couldn’t slide a credit card out of his wallet. I had to help him out of the restaurant. I had to drive him home. And, Piper, he was kind of a dick.”
“To you?” I’m unable to keep the alarm from my voice.
“He was short with me. That hasn’t happened before. And he was justrudeto everyone we encountered. Our server. A group of people coming in as we were on our way out. There was a tourist driving through the parking lot—rental car, you know—and he must’ve been looking at the GPS on his phone because he almost rolled into us. I thought Davis was going to drag theguy out of the car and hand him his ass.”
I sit back in my chair, mind whirling. I recall Henry’s earlier text:My dad’s nursing a wicked hangover.Yeah, I’d assume so. I’ve seen Davis throw back a beer or two in the confines of his home, and he was indulging the night Henry and I arranged for him and Tati to cross paths at Blitz Brews. But he’s always seemed in control.
I think back to the nights I’ve had a drink (or three) too many. A lot of times, my actions were spurred by an impetuous need to throw caution to the wind—to chase fun. But sometimes, something set me off: a fight with Tati, a less-than-stellar grade, a dream about Mom and Dad so vivid, so haunting, that I’d wake up thinking I was in my old bed in our old house, fixed firmly in my former wonderful life.
Or, like today, getting fired.
Two months ago, I would’ve called Gabi, then gotten too drunk to see straight.
“What if Davis was having a bad day?” I ask Tati. “What if he argued with Henry, or Henry’s mom, or some random person who made him feel like crap?”
“Doesn’t matter,” she says, more exasperated than sad now. “I have bad days all the time. I argue with you all the time. Have you ever seen me so drunk I slur my words? Have I ever vomited in the kitchen sink? Have I ever once passed out before I could tell the person I’m datingthanks for a nice evening?”
Oh god.
“That’s how it ended? He puked, went to bed, and you left?”
“That’s how it ended,” she confirms, rooting around in a desk drawer. She pulls out a compact, opens it, and glares into its mirror. “I put a glass of water and a trash can near his bed, then rolled him onto his side. I felt like I was back in college taking care of some idiot roommate, not saying good night to a grown man who knows better.”
“Have you talked to him today?”
She presses powder onto the bridge of her nose. “I don’t have anything to say.”
“Maybe you should see if there’s anything he wants to say to you,” I suggest gently, wary of setting her off again, yet compelled to give Davis the benefit of the doubt.
It just doesn’t seem right that he could be so Jekyll and Hyde. I hate to see Tati throw away a good thing; she’s a lighter, brighter version of herself when she’s with him.
Her gaze narrows. “Why are you on his team?”
“Histeam? I’m not on anyone’s team. It sounds like he was a disaster. But he’s also human. He’s not perfect.”
“I don’t expect him to be perfect. I expect him to act his age.”
