“You can relax,” Andrew said. He leaned his crutches against the table and took the seat across from Jem. “The cripple can seat himself.”
Jem hated that he’d been read so easily by someone he hadn’t seen in a decade. But he hated his instinctual reaction more. “Sorry,” he said. “You’re, uh, getting around better.”
Last time he saw Andrew, he had only been able to stand upright if someone helped him get there, and walking had been off the table.
“It’s amazing how motivating the desire to get away from Dad can really be.” The delivery was too dry to have been a joke, but Andrew didn’t dwell on it. He looked Jem over—as much as he could with the two of them seated at a table—and said, “California agrees with you.”
That’s because it’s on the other side of the country from South Carolina.Jem mustered a smile anyway. No point making this more awkward than it already was. “Thanks.”
A server arrived to deliver menus and glasses of water and take their drink orders. Andrew asked for a light beer, but Jem didn’t need any more alcohol this week, so he opted for Coke.
And then the server left, and whatever Twilight Zone easiness had been lubricating their conversation evaporated. What did they even have to talk about? Other than their childhood and their father, they had nothing in common. Andrew lived the good life in South Carolina, doing whatever he did now, and Jem was here, wiping kindergarteners’ snotty noses and praying they made it to the bathroom in time.
His shoulders hunched, even if he knew the thought was unfair to both himself and the kids.
Come on, Jem. Fake it till you make it.“So.” He forced himself to sit up straighter. “You’re getting married.”
For a moment Jem caught a glimpse of his boyhood friend—Andrew’s face cracked into an easy, happy smile. “I am. God, you’d love her. Not as much as I do, but—yeah. Dana’s great. Can’t believe she puts up with me.”
Jem tried to smile back. It was hard, though; his mind kept trying to tell him how far behind he was. He’d earned his car on his back. Which if you thought about it, was a twist on how his mother had earned the money for Jem to have golf lessons, or go to private school. Jem sold his body; his mother sold her silence about what his father did with hers.
He pushed the thoughts away. He had nothing to be ashamed of. His mother had hurt him by withholding the truth, but he wouldn’t blame her for the affair.
Maybe he stayed quiet for too long, or maybe some of his thoughts showed on his face, because Andrew cleared his throat. “But uh… I didn’t come here to talk about the wedding, actually. I mean, I did, but that’s tangential.”
For a moment Jem could only blink. The Andrew he’d known had barely scraped together the marks to pass every grade. “Tangential?” he echoed, aware his eyebrows were getting away from him.
Andrew huffed a rueful laugh and pressed a hand to the back of his neck. “You get a lot of studying done when all you can do is sit around all day.”
Jem flinched, hoped it wasn’t visible. “So why did you come?”
“Honestly?” He flexed his fingers. “I missed you. Miss you, present tense. And I don’t want… I don’t know. It sounds dumb to say it. I don’t want to start the next chapter of my life without trying to tie things up in this one. I came to apologize.”
Jem didn’t have to answer right away, as the server mercifully chose that moment to drop off their drinks and take their lunch orders. He wasn’t particularly hungry—wouldn’t have been even if he hadn’t had a heavy breakfast—so he ordered a fancy-looking sandwich, figuring he could take half of it home and feed it to River later.
He still hadn’t decided what to say when the server left.
“Jem? Are you going to say anything?”
Was he?
Jem took a sip of his Coke. His mouth had gone dry. “Do you even know what you’re apologizing for?”
That was more confrontational than he’d intended. His mother would’ve scolded him. Jem had forgotten how to talk like a Southerner—how to say something that sounded polite but cut beneath the surface. Plausible deniability.
For the first two months of their acquaintance, Tori thought Southern speak was hilarious. And then around Thanksgiving she’d said, “Jem, I love you, but for the love of God, will you say what you mean? I promise my feelings are not that delicate,” and Jem said, “If you don’t ask out that girl in your Spanish class, I’m going to tell her you’re saving yourself for marriage.”
Tori’s combined yowl of outrage and honk of laughter had cemented their friendship forever.
Now, though, Jem worried his plain speaking might have cost him a chance at reconciling with his brother.
But he and Andrew had always been direct with each other too. “Uh, I have a list, actually.”
Jem gaped. In his surprise, he regressed mentally about ten years. “Shut up, you do not.”
Andrew held up his hand in a parody of a Boy Scout. “Hand to God. I even wrote it down. Dana helped with it.”
That didn’t sound much like the kid Jem knew—but then Andrew pulled a wadded piece of paper from his pocket and set it on the table, started smoothing out the edges. “I didn’t want to forget anything.”
