I laugh lightly, thinking how silly I had been to believe my sister would just stop answering my calls, that suddenly we were no longer pillars in each other’s life. I had been so quick to believe she had discarded me in exchange for this new world, that I hadn’t considered what that new world looked like. What it was doing to her.
“One morning, I got an unexpected visitor. One of Sadie’s professors, Grant Darling, showed up on my doorstep, telling me that Sadie was in the hospital for an overdose, pills apparently laced with some other shit,” my chin wobbles in warning. “The stress of school and classes had started to get to her, and she couldn’t keep her promise. She followed, and I almost lost her.” I can’t help the catch in my voice. I rarely talk about this chapter in my life with anyone but Sadie and Grant. Even then, we focus more on next steps, constantly moving forward.
When I lift my gaze, Colton is staring at me with such a burning intensity that I feel a little lightheaded. His brow is furrowed, but eyes gentle like he’s stuck between emotions, anger and sorrow. I’m tempted to laugh watching his face contort in confusion.I know the struggle well.
I was so angry at her,so angry. We watched our father leave this world too soon, leave his daughters before we stopped needing him, and here she was following him down a path that was never ours to tread. The anger was never at her, it festered in my heart, leaving wells of guilt that had no bottom. Iknewsomething was wrong, and I didn’t act right away. I should have stormed the school, called in the troops, demanded she see me. She was mine to protect and I had failed.
I am failing her now.
A hand lifts my chin up and Colton is there, pressing his forehead against mine, shifting his hand to cradle the back of my neck. I soak in his calm, soothing me in a way I didn’t know I needed, this levity a foreign feeling. I’ve never sought out another person to calm my heart before, but that is what he does to me.Forme. He makes the noise in my head quiet, smooths the edges of rough decisions, brings my thundering heart to a steady pulse.
I throw a bag in the trunk of Grant’s car and quickly hop in the front seat while he fiddles around with the center dashboard, plugging in directions. Probably to the hospital where Sadie is being treated.
A hospital. Because she overdosed. Because she almost died. My Sadie.
The buckle clinks and grinds against the clip as I fight to lock myself in place, not pressing hard enough to latch it into place.
“Do you need help?” asks Grant, tone steady.
“No.” Mine is not. It’s too sharp, too mean. I shouldn’t be here. I need to be with Sadie. Now.
I fumble for a few more seconds before he tries again.
“Harper—”
“I don’t need your help!” I snap. Closing my eyes to take a deep breath. I left a note for Harris on the counter, and I’ll call him when we get on the road. I didn’t even know what to put in the note. I told him I was worried, that something was wrong, and he told me I needed to calm down.
If they thought I was overprotective before, they are in for a real treat now. Straight psycho sister. I’m going to sit in the back of her classes so I can make sure she has enough supplies. Going to buy one of those trundle beds so she can sleep right above me. Going to third wheel every date she has until she’s ninety.
A hand brushes against the one white-knuckling the buckle, making me jump and open my eyes. Grant moves his hand over mine, fidgeting with the buckle before pushing down hard. The click is deafening in the confined space.
“Thank you,” I mumble as we both turn to face the road. He starts the engine, a soft feminine voice telling him to turn right at the light that cross-sects the end of my street with the entrance to the highway.
I pull out an order pad from my purse, happy for the first time in my life that I have extras in every handbag I own. Curse of the trade I suppose.
I pull out a pen and start scribbling down notes, things I need to do once I get there. Get the numbers for some therapists in the area, look up the closest AA meeting location near her campus, murder the kid that gave her drugs, buy all the candy I can get at the nearest store. The essential things for me
I run the pen back and forth over the pad, the ink blurring in and out, only a few letters visible with each word.
I curse, looking around the floor…to find nothing. The floor pad of this car is cleaner than my apartment, not a stray pen or marker in sight. I look around for the first time, at the immaculate car and the matching man driving it.
“Are we going to stop anywhere for food or is that not allowed in here?”
He doesn’t turn his head, but his eyes dart to my side of the car, looking at me quickly before the light flashes from red to green.
“Are you writing down my order?” he asks in response, noting the pad in my lap, hand furiously trying to get the ink to flow, circling patterns on the back of the pad over and over. With no luck, in fact I think I made it angrier.
“No. I’m making a list of all the things I need to do for Sadie when we get there,” I tell him.
He nods in acknowledgement, like he approves of the idea.
“If you’re hungry, we can stop and get something.”
“I’m not hungry right now, but it’s like a twenty-hour drive, I figure at some point we need to eat,” I roll my eyes, trying not to be a bitch, but I would think a college professor would have a semblance of common sense.
“We aren’t driving twenty hours,” he furrows his brow and I mimic the expression.
My eyes track over his rigid body, large, but rigid. If I didn’t hate him, I might even consider him handsome. He has a light dusting of scruff that’s starting to see a little silver threaded at the chin and jaw, simple black framed glasses that sit on a thin nose, highlighting cheekbones sharp enough to cut glass. His hair is cut short, with a small wave to it that seems more from going too long without a haircut than by design. His eyes are an odd shade, somewhere between gray and blue, like looking at a steel pipe through a waterfall. Mesmerizing from far away, but frigid the closer you get.
