Dex duped me into trusting him and I let him.
Was I supposed to cut him slack because he was grieving?
What he did was wrong and unfair and betrayed every bit of trust we’d cultivated, butfuck, where would I be if I didn’t have Phoebe and Arden when Dad died? Would I be broken enough to do what he’d done? Was it even a question when I’d been broken enough to take a cross-country road trip with a complete stranger?
But the lying was inexcusable, especially with Phoebe involved.
God. Phoebe.
She was going to be heartbroken. She was going to be angry.
Would she blame me? I couldn’t blame her if she did. I hadn’t been careful enough.
How fucking naïve was I to believe I’d finally done something right? Phoebe’s smiles and laughter egged me on and I bent, not caring if I broke as long as she was happy. It never occurred to me that she might end up broken, too, but it should have. I was the guardian. I was supposed to look at it from every angle before setting forth, and I failed. I let Phoebe down. Again.
I needed to let Dex explain for four hours straight so maybe this wouldn’t seem so irreparable. I needed to never see his face again.
His grief was uglier than mine; that didn’t mean I should leave.
This last thought was unwelcome logic in the sea of hurt and anger. I didn’t want to think about this in a nuanced way. Not with Phoebe looking at me with shining eyes as if she already knew this little universe we’d created together, the three of us,was gone. Dex became integral so quickly. Phoebe opened up to him and he helped her through the insurmountable grief I’d never managed to scale. My pathetic, optimistic soul had reached for him, twining with his as he slowly let me in, unaware that the foundation we were building on was a lie.
The floor may have fallen out from under me, but Phoebe was still standing, and I needed to be okay for her right now. I needed to hold myself together long enough to map out our next move now that Dex wasn’t Dex, but he was still injured and heavily medicated. I needed to explain this situation to Phoebe calmly and retain the ability to answer whatever questions she’d have. I just needed another second. A breath. One last moment in a place where life didn’t feel so impossible.
I was tempted to let Dex explain it to Phoebe. Maybe with the words coming out of his mouth, she’d see him as the villain and me as a fellow victim. But I didn’t want to run from the hard things anymore. I wanted to be honest. I needed to be someone she could trust, even when everything fell apart. I needed to reassure her that it was her and me, us, forever. Dex couldn’t take that away.
I wiped a stray tear from my cheek and faced Phoebe when we reached the car. She hugged the sticker book to her chest, chewing her bottom lip, waiting for me to explain. She didn’t look to Dex for answers this time. I took a breath, my eyes meeting his over Phoebe’s head as he trailed behind, and he looked every bit as broken as the bones beneath his cast.How did we get here?I thought desperately.How do we go back?
I’d trusted him. With myselfandmy sister. His grief clouded his judgment and now here we were, over two thousand miles from home, strangers.
Twenty-two
BEND, OR
It rained all the way to Bend.
Another minute in Dex’s presence felt unbearable, let alone ten hours. I wanted nothing more than to drop everything and go home to cry on my best friend’s shoulder, but Phoebe was quick to point out that we couldn’t in good conscience leave Dex alone, at least not while he was medicated. I nearly put my foot down—I was almost positive Phoebe would let me. But I’d go to the end of the earth and back if it meant one more second with my dad, and I hoped if anyone was ever in the position to hand a gift like that to me, they wouldn’t hesitate. So I would do this for Catalina, and for Benji.
It was nice to focus my screaming mind on something simple and reliable like the highway rather than obsessively combing through the last two weeks with retrospect’s fine teeth. I did my best to keep it at bay. Just road and rain for miles. Snapshots from the hospital parking lot crept in periodically, taunting me. Phoebe looking exactly her age, so small and innocent. The look on her face when I forced out the words:Dex’s name is August. Benji was his brother. Her expression crumbling, stuck on one word.
“Was,” she’d repeated softly, and Dex squeezed his eyes shut and turned his back to us.
Our tight-knit little trio, fractured in a matter of minutes. For a second there, I really thought we’d found something permanent. I thought we’d foundeverything.
If Phoebe was angry at either of us, she didn’t show it. Once we were on the road after picking up Dex’s prescription, she plugged in her phone to play one of her mixes and immediately dipped a toe in conversation. I did my best to tune them out, tried not to zero in on the soft scratch of Dex’s voice. They kept the volume low, topics innocuous. My eyes never strayed to the rearview mirror unless merging. Rain pounded down from the pewter sky. I could feel his eyes on me.
He didn’t try to speak to me. I was equal parts relieved and furious.
I breathed easier once they fell asleep. The dull roar of rain acted as white noise to drown out my thoughts, my feelings, the steady breaths of Dex sleeping in the back seat. My dad used to tell me his favorite part of traveling was the quiet, and I never understood it until now. I felt him with me as the highway struck Oregon, and somehow, my spirit rose.
Phoebe and Dex were still sleeping when a road sign welcomed us to Bend sometime after 1A.M.I pulled over, tearing up as I searched nearby hotels on my phone. This should’ve been the finish line, but nothing felt done, and as angry as I was, a part of me wasn’t ready for the drive to end. I needed more time, so maybe it was a good thing that we had to wait until daylight to show up on Catalina’s doorstep with ghosts from her past, especially now that I knew this wasn’t a simple heartbreak, but catastrophic grief torn open and left to rot. Meeting Catalina was never going to be easy. Now, it seemed impossible.
We checked into the hotel, moving like zombies. Bend wassupposed to be a new beginning: We were going to take our time on the drive back east and once we got home, we were supposed to start a life, not whatever this new, splintered existence was standing on opposite ends of the hotel lobby.
Phoebe’s eyes tracked me when I emerged from the bathroom, my skin red and raw from another shower breakdown. My limbs ached. My brain buzzed with exhaustion. I knew she had questions, but I was in no shape to answer them; I’d been awake for twenty-four hours and it all caught up at once. I could barely hold my eyes open as I crawled into the bed closest to me.
“Vi,” Phoebe said. I buried my face in the pillow, squeezing my eyes shut. “Are you okay?”
“Mm-hmm.”
