Not worried.
Pissed.
“I—”
“It is, isn’t it? About work?”
I’m too tongue-tied to reply. I’ve never heard Karo speak to me this way. Her compressed tone sends my pulse puckering in my fingertips.
“It’s the last evening of my honeymoon road trip, and I’m sitting here with my new husband, having dinner at this restaurant we booked months ago because it has a view of the ocean and the sky is breathtaking and the food is to die for, but do I actually get to enjoy it?”
I flinch as she pushes out a brittle laugh. What is happening? It’s like I’ve landed in a different reality and my brain is failing to catch up.
“No,” she continues, “because once again, my sister has some job drama going on that is entirely preventable and wouldn’t be half so impactful if she wouldn’t put her career above literally everything else in her life.”
Every syllable out of her mouth is armored with tiny spears. “Karo—”
“If this was a relationship with a person you were in, I would’ve told you to get out years ago. Don’t you see how dysfunctional it is? You give so much of yourself, but do you get anything in return?”
In the short break she takes, plates clatter in the background, cushioned by the soft melody of a piano. A man, probably Lennart, murmurs something I can’t hear.
“I know it hurts hearing this, and it hurts me just as muchto say it, believe me. But Franzi, this has to stop. I want you to be happy, but I don’t want to solve your problems about work anymore. When has it ever made your life better? You want to become a professor and then what? More sleepless nights? A job on another continent where we get to see you even less? More stress about funding?”
“That’s not—”
“No, Franzi,” she cuts over me. The wobble in her voice hurts as much as her horrible words. “You listen to me for once.” She sniffs. “You’re thirty-two years old. You’re supposed to be myoldersister. You’re supposed to givemeadvice, too, listen to what’s going on in my life. I know you think I have it all sorted out, because my life is more stable, and Lennart is in it. But I have worries, too, which you’d know about if you ever gave me the space to talk about them. I want to vent to you, too. I want to tell you what’s on my mind, that I’m thinking of applying for jobs because I can’t stand the sameness of mine anymore. That Lennart and I want to try for a baby, and that I’m scared shitless about how our life would change. But I don’t get to share any of this with you because you’re like… a black hole. All our conversations revolve around you.”
She’s crying now while I am speechless, helpless, too far away to comfort her. Her words are a screw tightening in my chest and knowing that I’m the source of her pain brings tears to my eyes, too. I hear her hitched breathing, and then she clears her throat, “So whatever it is, Franzi, you figure it out. And I will go back to my dinner and the fucking view of the skyline and have this evening to myself.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
I never thought I’d be the one to break my sister’s heart. Being a sister should be the most natural thing in the world, and yet I’ve messed it up. I’ve been so single-minded about my career and relied on Karo holding me together through all the ups and many downs of it that I forgot about her needs. I should’ve been looking out for her over the last years, too, instead of hijacking any conversation. And to top it all off, I bombarded her with my worries on what should have been her unique and stress-free, once-in-a-lifetime honeymoon.
Here I am, as incompetent in life as I am in my career. Turns out, Jacob was right when he predicted I’d end up unsuccessful and alone. My chest feels hollow, my knuckles tight around my phone, and guilt swirls deep in my belly as my mind stabs itself with memories.
Memories in which I put myself first and her second.
Memories in which I treated her the way I hate to be treated.
It’s too much right now. Too much to unpack where I’ve gone wrong.
I couldn’t bear talking to Lewis earlier, emotions flaring bright when I’d just learned he’d won the same grant I’d been rejected for, but the cocktail of anger, disappointment, and jealousy has lost enough of its sting and made space for a slew of questions. After his betrayal, I don’t think the promises we made to each other late last night still stand, but I want answers and I want him to know how much I’m hurting.
Instead of heading home, I turn back to campus.
The Sawyer’s summer picnic is still in full swing. The lanterns have blinked on, strings of light crisscrossing above the food sections, and alcohol has turned up the volume on people’s conversations. Some of the vendors are already packing up, but the lines for drinks are long. I push down one of the main footpaths, past an area of the green that has been turned into a dance floor, and there he is at one of the metal tables—elbows angled, head in one hand, the other tapping his phone whenever the screen switches off. The lit screen gives me flashes of him: eyebrows pressed into a frown, downcast mouth, the smudge from my fingers dark on his chest.
Seeing him sets off a flurry behind my ribs, like my body hasn’t learned yet that we can’t reach out to him anymore. Next to him, Brady talks as she spins her straw through the shrunken ice cubes of her drink.
My sneakers crunch over the gravel as I plot a path toward them, and a few steps before I reach the table, Lewis looks up, then jumps to his feet.
“Frances— Jesus, I was worried.” His eyes trace over my face, his hand twitching up as if he’s about to touch me.
I take a step back. “I want to know why.”
“He was worried you didn’t get home,” Brady chimes up behind Lewis, who must have given her an excuse for his sullen mood.
My gaze remains fixated on his face. “Why didn’t you tellme about the grant? I want to know what else you didn’t tell me.” My anger has evaporated, and it has left behind a deep aching pit in my chest. “If this whole fake-dating business was all a game to you. Why you didn’t think the grant was important to mention when we agreed to give us a chance last night.” My voice cracks and I press my lips together, not willing to let him see me like this. Not anymore.
