“You need to finish it. You know that’s better for everyone.”
With a final kiss and a heavy sigh, he stands and crosses to the worktable. He takes off his gloves then picks up a loop tool.
I pull my knees to my chest and watch. His hands find their rhythm immediately, shaping and refining, coaxing the clay into contours that look more like me with every pass. The strong lamplight catches his profile and the small curls at the back of his neck. He’s beautiful when he works. He’s always been beautiful, but here, making something permanent out of us, he’s the saddest beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.
Cinna may think I take my life for granted, but I don’t. I’m grateful, right now, for this moment where I get to watch the man I love make the art that lights his soul.
I’ll carry this image forever, layered underneath everything that comes after and the distance between us we’ll never be able to cross again.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
JUNE
I’m standing in the middle of the living room, and I can’t remember why I came in here.
This house has been too quiet and it’s getting to me. There are no candles burning because Mom hasn’t lit one since Aeron’s overdose. The lavender and vanilla that used to live in every room has faded, and the house smells like dust and cold coffee. I keep looking at surfaces where candles should be and finding bare counters and shelves.
Carter’s door was open when I passed it upstairs. His bed is made but the gym bag is gone. He’s been leaving before I wake up and coming back after I’m in bed. It’s like he no longer lives here.
I’m relieved, because my anger at him is still a volcano. I’m worried it’ll never go away.
I stand here in the living room doing nothing when I hear footsteps on the stairs. Mom comes down and glances at me on her way past. She walks into the kitchen.
I follow.
She fills the kettle then gets a mug from the rack. She takes a tea bag from the box. She does all of this with the slownessof someone who has to think about each step because autopilot broke. I sit at the island and watch her move through the room that used to be the center of our world. Now it’s just a kitchen.
She took leave from work. She goes to the mental health facility as often as they’ll let her, even though the staff keeps telling her to come less. Aeron needs time away from home so he can heal, they say. I haven’t gone to visit him because of that reason. If staying away is what’s best for him, I’ll do it, even though the distance makes me feel like I’m abandoning him all over again.
I miss him so much and just want him home. I swear, I’ll be a better sister.
“Want me to make dinner?” I ask.
Mom shakes her head, unbrushed curly hair falling into her face.
“How about a movie?” I try. “To help distract us for a bit. I know I’ve spent the past few days sobbing.” I pause. “I’ve heard you sobbing too.”
The kettle clicks off. She pours the water. The steam rises and disappears.
She doesn’t respond. She finishes making her tea and carries the mug out of the kitchen and up the stairs. I listen to her footsteps fade down the hall until her bedroom door clicks shut.
I sit at the island alone. Tears burn my throat, but I swallow them back because I’m so tired of crying that my body rejects it. Is she angry at me? Does she blame me for not protecting him? I have no idea because she won’t talk.
We should be leaning on each other right now, but instead she’s pulling further away every day, and watching my mother disappear into herself is almost as frightening as watching my brother in that hospital bed.
I go upstairs to Aeron’s room.
His bed is unmade because Mom hasn’t touched his things, wanting to keep it just the way he left it for when he returns home. There’s a hoodie crumpled on the floor, one sleeve inside out. The room still smells like spearmint gum and that cheap body spray he buys by the case. I sit on the edge of his bed and press my palms into the mattress.
His sketchbook is on the nightstand. I flip through it, smiling at how amazing his work is, though it is a bit dark and haunting. And there are way too many sketches of Cinna.
When I get to the last page, my smile drops.
He drew a mother and a daughter holding hands. The lines are clean and confident. The mother’s hair is curly, the daughter’s falling past her shoulders. Their fingers are interlocked, both faces turned toward each other, smiling.
Next to them is a third figure. But Aeron didn’t draw this one the same way. This person is only cross-hatching. Thousands of tiny intersecting pencil lines building the shape of a body, a head, arms, legs, but no features, no face. Just hatched marks making the suggestion of someone there.
The sketchbook shakes in my hands. I know exactly what my brother was saying with this. He drew himself as a shadow in his own family, almost like this is his goodbye note.
