I nod. “All good.”
The first bell rings and I look around for Charlie.
“She had to meet with her guitar teacher. She’ll see you in class.”
“Oh.”
“She’s all right.”
“Am I a shitty best friend?”
Hannah smiles. She’s still gorgeous, even with the purple pockets underneath her eyes. “I think you’re a very human best friend who’s been through some shitty things.”
I hook my arm through hers, pulling her close to my side. “You’re too good to me.”
She lays her head on my shoulder as we start down the hall. “We’re good to each other. Have to be, right?”
“Yeah,” I whisper weakly because it’s all my voice can get out.
Up ahead, I see Owen. I almost forgot how tall he is—?nearly an entire head and a half above me, all of our father’s height pressed into his bones. He’s walking with Jaden but he’s not smiling, his eyes glazed over as Jaden babbles on about something stupid, I’m sure.
I feel Hannah tense as he gets closer, her breath audibly catching in her throat. I want to pull her through the crowd, press her face against my neck so she can’t see him, can’t hear him, but there’s no time. Suddenly, he’s right there, inches away from us, and there’s this violent tear inside of me.
Because I want to pull him through the crowd too. Hide him away. Hold him while he cries.
Hannah’s entire body shudders as he passes, but she keeps walking. He’s the one who looks away. The whole moment lasts only a few seconds, but I feel literally crushed by Hannah’s strength and beautiful anger, by the brother I know I’ve lost, in some ways, forever.
But I was wrong, thinking that I can’t move on. I can—?we all can. I just won’t move through the world like I did before. Some parts of me are gone. Some others have come alive, woken by the need to fight, to matter, to be heard. Some parts are wary, others angry, others heartbroken. But I’m still me. I’m still moving. We all are, in some way or another.
Charlie was right. I wasn’t ready then. Not three years ago. Not three weeks ago. I’d learned to ignore that hunger, that prowling something. But I can’t ignore it anymore and I don’t want to.
I’m ready now.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
A FEW DAYS LATER, Owen is on the roof. Earlier that night, as soon as I pushed away from the virtually silent dinner table and retreated into my room, I went to the window. Swept the curtains back to look at the stars.
But I saw my brother instead, dark form against the dark sky.
Now my hands open the window, my body crawls out, my mind screams at me to stay inside, my heart aches for my other half.
It’s amazing, all these parts of me, all this love and hate tangled up and coexisting.
I make my way over to him. He turns to look at me and I meet his eyes for a split second before gazing up at the tiny pinpricks of light dotting the sky. I feel him turn away, his chin lifting to the stars just like mine. We’re not even saying anything, but the tears come fast and hard and silent. There’s simply no way around this. No magic words to make it better. He can’t take back what he’s taken away.
“Once upon a time,” he says, and my breath stutters in my lungs. I don’t say anything and he goes on, his voice a cracked whisper. “Once upon a time, a brother and a sister lived with the stars. They were happy and had wild adventures exploring the sky. One day—”
“One day the brother broke his sister’s heart.”
He falls silent, but not for long. Owen never could shut up. “I didn’t—”
“Don’t. Don’t you dare.”
He sniffs and folds his arms, shaking his head at the ground. “I want things to go back to normal.”
I look at him. Finally look at him, his face and features so familiar, so like mine. “There is no normal, Owen. Not anymore. There’s only making it something other than this.”
He frowns. “How . . .”
