Madison flops backward onto the bed, ignoring her. “Ugh, don’t ever settle. That’s my advice.”
Rowan snorts. “You’re literally engaged.”
“Exactly. I caught the good one. There’s only one.”
We settle again in a comfortable triangle. We pass chips and drink margaritas with our shoulders bumping together.
We talk about stupid things like Rowan’s disastrous attempt to dye her hair at home, and Madison almost falling over at apress conference last week. We laugh about Dad breaking the lawnmower and blaming faulty engineering.
We talk about deeper things, too. We talk about what healing might look like and what I want, even if I can’t name it yet. But mostly, we’re just sisters. We are three girls on a childhood bed, passing drinks and comfort back and forth.
Yeah,I think to myself.I’m going to be okay.
Fifty-One
Six months later
My new apartment smells like fresh paint and cardboard.
There are boxes everywhere. They’re stacked in the hall, shoved against the kitchen counter, and blocking most of the living room. But it’s mine. All mine. The windows are huge, the light is warm, and when I stand in the middle of the room, barefoot in ripped jeans and a black T-shirt, I feel something settle inside me.
Independence. Peace. Steadiness.
Things I didn’t think I’d ever feel again.
Six months ago, I was sitting on the edge of a childhood bed in a towel, trying to figure out what ground-up meant in practical terms.
Here is what it meant. Therapy, first. Once a week with Dr. Anita Reeves, who has a plant wall in her office and doesn’t let me get away with anything. When the talking wasn’t quite packing the punch it needed to, Rowan told me to come to her studio. She handed me a paint can and a huge empty canvas and told me to go crazy. It worked. There’s a specific kind of healing that only comes from making a mess on purpose.
Then came the Cathy Brennan call, which lasted forty minutes and ended with me saying yes. The rehearsals. The performance. The reviews that used the words I once could only dream of. Dr. Reeves wouldn’t let me dismiss those words. I have them written on a Post-it on my bathroom mirror now, not because I need the validation, but because I’m practicing the act of accepting a good thing.
Typical Callahan chaos is currently unfolding in my living room. Madison is dragging a box labeled “bathroom stuff” toward the hallway, swearing because the bottom keeps catching on the rug. Rowan is unpacking mugs I don’t remember buying. My mother is fussing with the curtains like they will never hang correctly unless she manages them personally. My father is attempting to assemble a bookshelf without instructions because he refuses to be dominated by Swedish furniture.
“If you put that there,” Rowan says from the kitchen doorway, “I will say nothing, but I will think something.”
“That’s rich,” Noah scoffs, putting the box exactly where he wants it, “from someone who hasn’t carried anything in twenty minutes.”
“I’ve been directing and consulting,” Rowan says, gesturing broadly. “These are management skills. You should be grateful.”
Dad sets his screwdriver on the shelf and looks at the far wall. “Piper.”
“I know, Dad.”
“It’s yellow.”
“That’s the point,” I say. I chose it because Ezra would have called it impractical. I chose it because yellow ismyfavorite color, and it reminded me of a summer dress I once wore.
Dad looks at it for a moment longer. “I think I like it.”
“Of course you do,” Mom says serenely. “She has her father’s eye for color. The yellow is perfect, love.”
I’m wearing the linen shirt from Mira Cove over my black T-shirt, along with the earrings I bought there. I’ve decided that looking good and feeling comfortable are both valid reasons to keep wearing them. I have seventeen unread texts from a group chat calledThe Anchor, and my calendar is full for the next four months.
I stand in the middle of the living room and breathe in. My own place. The smell of new paint and clean floors. And underneath all of it? Nothing. No one else’s scent. No one else’s opinion about where things should go.
“Are you crying?” Rowan asks, appearing at my shoulder.
“No,” I say.
