Dad rallies enough to make it up the stairs with Amy’s help; Jasmine doesn’t emerge from her room, but the lights are on, spilling from her doorframe.
I knock on her door, but when she doesn’t answer, I knock again louder.
“Jasmine? You asleep?”
Still nothing.
I crack the door slowly, just in case she’s changing or something.
But she’s not. She’s lying facedown on her bed, still in her jeans and sweater. Her rain-soaked boots drip onto the bedroom carpet—a disowning offense in the Ghasnavi household.
“Jasmine?” She doesn’t answer me, but her shoulders are moving up and down like she’s breathing hard.
Or crying.
A cold fist clenches in my stomach.
“You alive?”
She raises a hand before letting it flop down onto the bed again.
I approach her cautiously, like a wounded animal. Her duvet is rumpled from where she flung herself on top of it. “What’s going on?”
She shifts around and turns her head enough to look at me. She’s got tear tracks running down her cheeks, staining them black and purple from her makeup. Her puffy upper lip quivers.
“He broke up with me.”
Liam broke up with her.
Liam. Broke up. With Jasmine.
It hits me like an out-of-control set piece, driving all the air from my lungs.
They broke up. They’re not together anymore.
I clamp down on the strangled laugh trying to fight its way out. I’m a terrible brother. Quite possibly the worst in the world. Bottom ten for sure.
Because my first thought isn’t even to comfort my sister. No. It’s relief, flaring deep in my chest like a ghost light.
Maybe bottom five is more accurate.
Jasmine’s still crying. I sit next to her and rub circles into her back. Just like I always do.
They broke up.
“You okay?” I ask.
I already know she’s not. She never is.
She slowly sits up. I lean away to grab the Kleenex box, nearly toppling off the bed before I right myself.
There’s a weird spot on her covers, and it takes me a moment to realize it’s a smear of her makeup. It looks like a drama mask—the tragedy one—and another cruel laugh threatens to erupt.
Bottom three. For real.
Jasmine blows her nose, dabs at her eyes.
“What happened?”
