“I keep expecting him to walk in,” she said finally. “Both of them.”
I nodded, even though she wasn’t looking at me.
“I know.”
“I lost my son,” she said, her voice breaking, “but you lost your brother.”
I closed my eyes. The pain was sharp and familiar, a blade I’d learned to live with.
“And Lily lost everything.”
She rested her head against my shoulder. I wrapped an arm around her, something I hadn’t done in years and we stayed like that, two broken pieces clinging to the memories of the people we’d lost.
“I’m glad you’re here,” she murmured after a while.
I didn’t tell her about my doubts.
???
When I finally came back inside, Lily was asleep on the couch, her small body curled around her teddy bear. Claire was gone.
My phone buzzed in my hand. A message from my friend Jack.
You alive or what? Haven’t heard from you.
Another message came almost immediately.
So… when you coming back? You sure you want to play house in Hicksville?
I stared at the screen as something bitter curled in my stomach.
Of course, Jack would say that. Especially after the fact that I hadn’t invited him along. Jack never let things go easily.
I didn’t reply.
Because I had no answer for him. I didn’t know where I belonged. Because the two worlds I’d been straddling had never felt farther apart.
And because the one person who might have anchored me, the girl I’d once held beneath this same tree, the woman I now watched from a careful distance, was the one I’d broken.
Chapter 26
Flashback
Ethan
(Age Seventeen)
The spring evening felt like something stolen, soft, warm, and tinged with the faint sweetness of thawed earth and budding grass. I hadn’t meant for either of us to get tipsy, not really. I’d only meant to show Claire the contraband bottle Bill kept hidden behind the old fishing jackets, the one we’d joked about finding for months. But one laugh became two, and two sips turned into more, and now the world had that slow, pleasant wobble that made everything feel a little unreal.
The sun dipped behind the tree line, flattening into a molten band of pink and gold. Claire’s hair, a mess of blond strands she’d pulled into a haphazard bun, kept slipping loose, catching the light like they’d been painted there. I had to stop myself three separate times from reaching out and pulling the clip free just to see it fall around her shoulders. Something about that idea felt too big, too intimate, too dangerous.
She was sitting on the old wooden swing that creaked under the slightest touch, her feet grazing the ground as I pushed her lightly. The spring air brushed past us, cool and sweet, carrying the faint scent of lilac from the bush that grew crooked along the fence.
Claire laughed, soft, breathless, tipsy and the sound arrowed straight through my chest.
“You’re barely pushing me,” she teased, throwing me a look over her shoulder.
“I don’t want to send you flying,” I muttered, though the truth was my hands were shaking a little. Because she was beautiful. Not cute. Not pretty. Beautiful in a way that made my throat tighten.
