“I don’t know if it would matter if I knew Cal’s family or not. They would still deserve justice. I don’t want to take that from them and I’ll never try to, but I can’t help feeling both things—love for my brother, and yet because I’ve seen Heath’s grief firsthand, I feel that too. I feel it now more than ever, because I know exactly what Jason did.”
Maggie still says nothing.
So I tell her what happened at Heath’s house too.
She has to fix my makeup again when I’m done. And her own.
I think it helps to get it all out. Laura and I have talked endlessly over the past week, about everything except Heath. I’m not ashamed about Heath, but it all felt so impossible in my head that I could never let the words reach my lips. It doesn’t feel any less impossible saying them to Maggie, but I don’t feel as alone with them.
“What does that even mean Heath was with his brother’s girlfriend?”
I drop my head an inch. “I don’t know. I don’t want to think they weretogether—not that we were, exactly—”
“Brooke.”
I sigh. “It means he lied to me. At the very least it means that.”
Maggie pauses, then says, “And at the worst?”
I shrug to deflect from answering. At the worst it means he didn’t care about me the way I cared about him.
“Are you going to talk to him? Ask him?”
“He just let me leave, Maggie. He didn’t try to explain or stop me. I don’t think he even looked at me.”
“I bet he was in shock.”
“I was too.”
She tilts her head sideways against her headrest. “What if you guys had been in your house? What if your parents and Laura had walked in and found the two of you? How much would you have been thinking about him and how much would you have been thinking about them?” She sets her hand on my arm. “Whatever the answer is, multiply it by a million, because he isn’t the same thing to your family as you might be to his.”
She makes me cry again. Everything makes me cry. I know she’s right. I knew it even before she said it, but it was easier to focus on him lying to me than to think about what Heath must have be dealing with this past week. Definitely self-recrimination for bringing me into his house, maybe even for letting me into his life at all.
That thought pierces straight through me because, lie or not, I don’t think I’ll ever regret him.
“I think you should talk to him. If for no other reason than to let him explain. And maybe, tell him where you’re at now.”
I nod, though I stay silent. I can’t imagine seeing him again, telling him anything about the reality I’ve lived this past week. Whether he can explain Allison or not, I don’t think he’ll ever be able to just see me again.
I don’t know that he’ll want to try.
Laura is on the porch waiting for us when Maggie and I pull up. I don’t have to ask to know that Mom’s absence can be explained by Dad still making sure she gives me some space.
Laura stands when we climb up the steps and I hug her.
“It’s okay,” I tell her. “It hurts but it’s okay.”
She nods and wipes the corner of one eye when she pulls away, then turns to Maggie. “Thanks for going with her.”
“Thanks for letting me know she needed the company.”
Seeing my best friend and my sister together is like a balm on my bruised and battered heart. It makes the decision I have to make crystal clear in my mind. I know Maggie will be all over it and I have to hope it will show Laura that neither of our lives are over.
“I think I want to film myStories on Iceaudition,” I say. “Will you help me?”
Maggie repeatedly fist pumps the air, then slowly lowers it when she sees me watching Laura’s face.
My sister smiles at me even as her eyes fill with tears. “You have to try, right? We all have to try.”
