I gripped the table hard.
We weren’t moving on from each other. We were going to move through thistogether.
“No,” I breathed and clutched the hallway table. “No.”
“Zoltán’s life ruined, too,” Mum snapped. “Not only hers.”
Everly raised her hands. “You don’t get to talk about ruined lives while you stood by and let it happen. You’re not sympathetic here. You’re complicit.”
I didn’t know what those words meant. I only knew her tone was angry, and her little fists might look fragile, but they were weapons.
The story of Everly punching a guy at MotoBike was legendary.
Do not mess with the Bacques.I’d been warned of that far too many times when people knew I was joining StormSprint. Imre had scoffed at it, telling me that they were too high on their horses.
“Maybe if you said sorry—”
“I try!” I shouted. “I try many times. Over and over.” I lifted my phone. “Silence.”
I was yet to cry, but my voice broke, and my eyes itched, the room blurring. But my feet were stable on the ground. The room wasn’tspinning.
“She doesn’t care what you have to say,” Everly sighed, inching towards the stairs. “You can’t change that.”
“Please,” I begged, following her.
“I’m here to collect Fia’s things,”she said, turning her back on me and walking up.
The words were in the same rehearsed, robotic tone. She didn’t need any other words. This was all she had in Hungarian — all she needed.
“Please no.” I took her hand to try and tug her back.
She span, snatching herself out of my grip. “Do not touch me. Luca is in the car just outside. There would be hell to pay if he knew.” She came down a step so that she was face-to-face with me. “You have done this. All my sister ever wanted, she had. And you snatched it away because you wanted… What did you want, Zoltán? How did you envision this going down? Horribly? Privately?” She stood straight, anger in the flare of her nostrils. “The only way I see is irreparably.”
Everly thought she knew Fia best. Once, she did.
Maybe I was delusional.
But this was reparable. It had to be.
“Everly—”
“I’m here to collect Fia’s things,” she snapped. “Now show me before I call Luca in.”
Luca and I raced together. He’d probably come in with a big grin, slap me on the back, call me a dickhead, and gather her things with or without my agreement.
I overtook her on the stairs and went straight into mine and Fia’s bedroom.
“Please — no tell her—”
But, with how small she was, she looked under my arm at the state I’d let it get in.
I knew what was behind me without turning. There was a sliver of space on Fia’s side of the bed where I would lie on my side to sleep. The rest was paper. On the side. The duvet. The rocking chair. The floor.
Shame crept into my shoulders, and they tightened. Fia would be ashamed.
She found my cleanliness attractive.
She would find the current me repulsive.
