I wanted her to shout. It would have been easier if she’d shouted.
Instead, though, she reached out and pushed a stray strand of hair behind my ear. When she spoke, her voice was soft. ‘Sweetie, I’m just trying to look after you.’
‘Stop!’
There were no spikes for me to push my thumb into, so I had to clench my fists instead, driving my fingernails into the palms of my hand. ‘This is why I didn’t tell you!’ I exclaimed. ‘I’m an adult now, Chess! I’m thirty-one years old! I know what I’m doing! But you still treat me like I’m a little kid you need to look after!’
‘I’m yoursister.’ There was a sharp edge in her voice now. ‘And I love you.’
‘Too much!’
I knew – even before I saw the words hit her like a slap to the face – that I’d said something unforgivable.
But the brakes were off now, a month’s worth – years’ worth, a life’s worth – of pent-up feelings pouring out of me. ‘I love you, Chess, and I appreciate everything you’ve done for me. But I’m not a little girl anymore, and sometimes – God, sometimes being loved by you is exhausting.’
Francesca Shaw always knew what to say.
That had been true my whole life. Chess knew what to say. Chess knew what to do. No matter what the situation was, Chess knew how to handle it.
Silence fell.
Chess sat there, on the couch, still as stone, and said nothing.
‘I, um…’ I stood, legs shaking beneath me. ‘I think maybe I should leave.’
She didn’t stop me.
Chapter NineJonah
My parents weren’t attending the wedding. ‘If you’d given us more notice, perhaps we could have figured something out, Jonah,’ my dad had said sharply, ‘but as you’re well aware, this conference trip has been planned for months.’
I didn’t mind. A wedding without them – without my dad lobbing grenades at Sadie or her sister, who would probably punch them out of the air and directly back into his face – sounded infinitely more pleasant than one with them there.
Plus, with my life and furniture all packed up and being shipped across the country, it meant I had a place to stay for my last couple of nights in town that blessedly didn’t have them in it.26
I spent the night before my wedding in my childhood bedroom, the suit I’d rented for the ceremony hanging in the wardrobe next to my old high school blazer. I slept poorly, and consequently slept late. The sun was streaming in through the windows by the time I shuffled down to the kitchen to scrounge up some breakfast—
Only to be greeted by the rich aroma of freshly brewed coffee, and my brother standing in front of the toaster.
‘Elias!’ I exclaimed. ‘What the fuck are you doing here?’
‘Surprise.’ He grinned. ‘What do you think I’m doing here? You’re getting married!’
I didn’t know how to name the feeling that started – not to sweep over me, like a wave, but roll over me very gently, like a cloud moving across the sky.
It was… warm. Pink. There were notes of surprise: surprise that he was here, but also that the thought of coming here had even occurred to him. Something like satisfaction, too, like when the lid finally pops off a hard-to-open jar.
‘Please tell me you didn’t fly all the way from Germany just for my wedding. That’s so much money. And it’s not even a real wedding!’
‘I’ve got one return flight built into my fellowship funding. I figured I might as well use it while Dad is somewhere else.’
‘You should have gone to see Fi.’
‘I did. I spent the last couple of weeks in Tassie.’
I blinked. I’d talked to Fiona almost every day since Sadie and I told her we were getting married, and she hadn’t said a thing about Elias being there.
‘She didn’t want to ruin the surprise,’ Elias explained.
