Chapter 1
Jess
At first, I think my sister has run away.
I could be forgiven, I think, for the dramatic thought, could be forgiven for jumping to such a conclusion based on nothing more than a silent house, a set of keys missing from the shelf we keep by the front door. It could be something simple, after all: an errand she forgot to tell me she was running, a walk she didn’t text to say she was going on.
It could be something totally simple.
But it’s like I said.
I could be forgiven.
“Teeg?” I call out for the second time, but I know she’s not here.
I canfeelshe’s not here.
I take a breath through my nose, willing myself to settle, to ignore an old, familiar ache in the pit of my stomach.
It isn’t that, I tell myself firmly, but still, as I move through the kitchen, my eyes dart unconsciously to the small, round table where Tegan and I ate dinner together last night. Where my mom and I used to eat dinner together every night.
There’s no envelope there.
I close my eyes and shake my head.
I could be forgiven for checking.
When I open my eyes again, I’m more settled, more present. It’s like that moment when you come fully back to reality after waking up, startled, from a bad dream.I’m in my bed, you think.That wasn’t real at all. I remember that Tegan and I—despite the strange tension of the last couple of months, despite the big transition both of us are facing—had a great night last night, the best we’ve had in weeks.
There’s no reason there’d be an envelope.
I let out a quiet scoff. It’s private self-deprecation for my anxiety chased by a pang of sadness: not even three months from now, Tegan will be away at college, and I’ll be walking into an empty house every day.
I’d better get used to it.
I clock the empty popcorn bowl and glasses we left on the coffee table last night. I’d fallen asleep on the couch, two-and-a-half episodes in to whatever season ofFriendsTegan was currently streaming, and when she’d poked me awake a couple hours later she’d smiled and called me an old lady. I’d laughed and told her I wouldn’t argue, since I could remember the days whenFriendswas on reruns after I got home from school. I’d waved her away from cleaning up and we’d both shuffled to bed, and before I shut off my light she’d called to me from her room.
“Love you, Jess,” she’d said, and I’d felt a little clutch of emotion gather in my throat. It was good to hear her say it. I’d started to think—what with her sullen, sometimes sharp attitude lately—that maybe she didn’t anymore.
In my bathroom, I find easily what I came all the way back home for, barely five minutes after arriving at work: my best pair of shears, the ones that hardly ever leave my station at the salon. That’d been, really, how last night’s unexpected girls’ night had started: yesterday I was halfway through my day, taking a quick break while a client’s hair was processing, and I’d checked my phone to find two messages from Tegan, a voice note followed by a string of prayer-hands emojis.
“Jessieeeeeeeee,” she’d whined cheerfully, in a way I hadn’t heard her do in forever. In away I’d smiled to realize I’d missed.
“You havegotto do something about these ends! It has to be tonight! I won’t be able tostandit! Please,please? I know you hate cutting hair at home but what if!”—she paused dramatically—“I make you your favorite egg sandwich in exchange?”
I texted her back an eye-roll emoji for the begging and a thumbs-up for the request.
The truth was, I would’ve done it without the egg sandwich, which was actually not my favorite anything, but it was the only food Tegan could competently make, and I always made a big deal of praising her for it.
I made a big deal of it last night, too.
I pick up the shears, preparing to tuck them into their sleeve, but then . . .
Then I pause, that anxious, ominous feeling pulsing through me again.
It has to be tonight, she said on her voice note, and I didn’t even think her hair was that desperate for a trim. I’ve never let it get unhealthy looking, not in all the ten years I’ve been taking care of her.
I swallow, drifting out of the bathroom with the shears held loosely in my suddenly clammy palm, snippets of Tegan’s steady stream of cheerful, casual chatter from last night coming back to me. My nail polish color, her new favorite song. How the mail guy talks loudly on his phone every time he walks up the front stoop to our box. Tegan training a new co-worker at the coffee house where she’s worked part-time for the last two summers.
