“You can talk to me, you know.” I nod toward the games, at the sheer joy painted across every child's face, trying to communicate that something about it makes me sad, too. She nods, chewing on another bite of pizza seeming to think something over.
“I think I’m just jealous,” she says, pressing her lips together in a shy smile.
“Of them?”
“Of you.” She bites her inner cheek and she must see my utter shock because she chuckles, that laugh I wish I could drown in.
“Why would you be jealous of me?” I pull my head back trying to see in her what she sees in me. Like maybe her expression will lead me to the thoughts in her head.
“You’re just…loved, Andy.” She looks at my sister, giggling with a boy about her age as they both clutch the wheels of the Nascar style game they're seated at. “Your family is warm. Is perfect.” She takes another long sip of her beer staring down into it, refusing to meet my eyes.
“It hasn’t always been like this Sloane…this easy.” I take a bite of the crust that I notice she hasn’t touched on her plate. “Most days, Carm and I would kill for what you have.”
She huffs out a laugh. “That’s crazy.”
Frustration creases my brow as I observe a girl who’s so starved for connection that she can’t even see how good she has it. “Half of my wardrobe is from a donation bin.” I pour thepitcher of beer into my own glass until a pale white foam hits its edge. “I’ve never been abroad, hadn’t tried sushi until I got to Astor…” I laugh. “I ate reduced lunch at school, and was on every government assistance plan you could think of. Carm and I are close because I raised her when my parents worked overtime to make ends meet.” I basically sold my soul to get us to Boston I want to say, but instead I watch her, the way she’s picking at her sleeve, guilt washing over her features. “We’re close because all we have is each other.” I watch Carmen, feeling that glassy haze fall over my own vision.
“She’ll know, Andy.” I look over and Sloane's careful gaze focuses on me. “That you did what you could. That she might not have had everything but she had enough. She had you.” She swallows hard and I consider her mom, the things she’s told me about her adoption, that photo of her in that file.
“Did you have enough?” There’s a steady burn between us, the heat of two people who aren’t saying anything but also saying everything. She doesn’t answer but I watch her eyes find my sister, full of sorrow, jealousy and hope and I know she feels the way I do. Like if she couldn’t have this, at least Carm can.
“When I first met Luis he’d take me to an arcade in California, pretty similar to this one.” I suck in a breath, feeling an urgent need to tell her the truth—a souvenir from my childhood that my dad can’t strip away. I clear my throat, trying to disguise an emotion I’m sure is so clearly written across my face and keep my voice low, as if the memory will crack in half if I speak an octave higher. “It was just for bad days. I’d lose a basketball game, fail a test, be stuck on why my dad left…why he never came back.” I see understanding flood her expression and wish she didn't carry this exact same wound. The way it worms itself inside every inch of you, every thought, every action, infesting every memory until all you are is an amalgamation of the ways you couldn’t make them stay.
“He’d always remind me that even when someone leaves you behind it isn’t some omen for the rest of your life.” Her breath hitches at the words and I let my hand graze hers, let the tips of our fingers touch across the table. “I was so young. I just wanted to run from every connection at that point.” I let out a sad laugh. “Luis helped me realize I was running because I was scared, that if I ran long enough I’d forget how to stay. How to let someone find me.” The room feels heady, like we are both holding our breath and her hand urgently grasps mine in a plea to stay here—stay with her.
“How did you stop? Running?” Trembled air escapes her as she breathes the words. The question hangs between us, the heaviness of it muting the laughter around us, until we are just a we and the rest of the world has faded away. I let my eyes meet hers and I see it, all of what we could be together, both of our memories, the pain and the love rippling in the dark blue flecks of her gaze.
“Someone found me.” My voice is a ghost of all the things I still want for myself, the things I can see that she wants too. We sit there, the moment quiet and winding around us.
“Sloane! Look!” Carmen’s giddy voice pulls Sloane’s focus as she moves her attention to my sister who’s proudly pulling a large stuffed dog from a claw machine.
“Hell yeah, sister!” Sloane’s smile moves into that too perfect mask, but I see it there, raw hot pain, pain I wish I could wipe away, wish I could consume.
“Ski ball?” She juts her chin out, her voice too chirpy as she chugs the rest of her beer, but it’s there in her eyes—recognition that the moment we just had happened, that it existed and she can’t just wipe it away no matter how much she wants to.
I nod, registering that this is her shield, her performance, the one her parents, the tabloids, hell, even her brother believe. But I’ve seen what’s underneath and I know she’s just afraid.Scared I’ll name that thing out loud. Something real, something breakable, a connection that terrifies her. So I let the pause stretch, hold her gaze just long enough to remind her I’m still here, still seeing her. Then I grin, letting my own mask fall into place.
“Yeah. Ski ball.”
33
Sloane
February
Admittedly, I’d never spent a winter in the northeast. All I’d ever heard was that it was beyond dreary, that the landscape was like a corpse, and that it was frigid and barren. Since Grant moved up here for school and basketball, I only really forced myself to visit when all I’d need is a light jacket. Here I am now, though, bundled up in this long, crimson shearling coat we found in one of those high end consignment stores. One of Jean and Olivia’s favorites, and now mine; Gen tolerated it, appeasingly playing dress up before bolting toward that gym her and Grant use in the city.
They’re a little obsessed, those two. I forgive it, my brother and my—fingers crossed—future sister in law being so up each other’s asses, because they’re less weird about it than Olivia and Ben. They remind me of those teenagers you see at the mall, always in quiet, intense, telepathic cahoots about something the rest of us will never understand, like a book.
“Oh, thank you,” Olivia sings up at the server, rubbing herhands together before she clasps her steaming cappuccino. The streets twinkle, even without the holiday decor that was hastily packed up after the New Year came and went, as I peer out the window of the cafe we’ve found ourselves in, just Olivia, Jean, and I, our bags full of our spoils. A fire roars in the corner, and I consider taking the coat off when I catch myself in the glass and decide against it.
“So what do you think Gen will think?” Olivia’s smile flattens as she looks between Jean and I with a stern expression. “Should I tell her? Or should I let Ben mention it? Like what is appropriate here?”
I roll my neck, hearing the bones crack as I sigh. “That boy irritates me to no end,” I say of Will Chapman, who apparently can’t leave us alone. “I vote not to bother herormy brother with his bullshit.”
“It’s nothisbullshit,” Jean clarifies, and I roll my eyes. “His dad’s making him come back, right? That’s what Ben said.” Making him come back to finish the season and then join the draft, a year earlier than he was supposed to.Whoop dee fuckin’ doo.
“He’s an adult. Pretty sure he could just say,no, fuck off.”
