Page 48 of Coming Home

Theo.

I froze just inside the doorway. The cold glass of the bottle suddenly felt like ice against my skin. My damp hair dripped onto the collar of my sweater. My lips were still tingling from the taste of Ralph.

Ralph saw me first. His eyes locked onto mine across the expanse of the deck, and I watched a flash of pure panic pierce through his expression before he forced his features into a neutral mask.

Theo was talking, gesturing sharply with his hand, his body angled away from the door. Then, noticing the sudden shift in Ralph's attention, Theo followed his gaze.

He turned around. My brother looked right at me.

I watched the recognition hit him. It wasn't a slow realization; it was a violent, instantaneous collision.

His eyes dropped from my face to the energy drink clutched in my hand. Then over to Ralph, who was standing there in nothing but swim shorts, water still glistening on his chest.

He did the math. I could see the numbers clicking into place behind his eyes, a slow-motion car crash I was powerless to stop.

"What is this?" Theo's voice was low.

I opened my mouth, but my throat felt like it was coated in ash. No sound came out.

"The pink suitcase," Theo said, his eyes shifting slowly back to Ralph. The look of betrayal in his eyes was sharp enough to draw blood. "In your kitchen. That was hers. That belonged to my sister."

Ralph took a step forward, his hands raised slightly.

"Theo, listen to me. Let me explain⁠—"

"How long?" Theo cut him off, turning his gaze back to me, his voice expanding, filling the hollow space of the natatorium. "How long have you been with him, Emma?"

"A few weeks," I whispered.

"A few weeks." He repeated it, turning the words over like something rotten. "You've been in town for weeks. Living with my best friend. And neither of you thought I deserved a phone call? Neither of you thought to tell me?"

"I wasn't ready, Theo⁠—"

"Ready for what?" he snapped, his voice finally climbing to a dangerous, raw register. "Ready to see your family? Ready to talk to the brother who has been leaving you voicemails every single night for thirteen months? Ready for the man who sat at his kitchen table checking his phone until two in the morning, wondering if his sister was dead in a ditch somewhere?"

"You don't understand how hard it was⁠—"

"Then make me understand!" he roared. The words bounced off the tile walls. Down in lane six, a swimmer stopped mid-stroke. Coach Vance slowly lowered her clipboard, her expression turning grave.

"Explain it to me, Emma! Explain how my little sister disappears, cuts off her entire life, secretly moves into my best friend's house, starts hanging out at his pool, and decides that the one person who spent a year tearing his hair out reaching out to her didn't need to know she was alive and breathing ten miles away!"

"It wasn't about you," I choked out, tears burning the back of my eyes. "It was never about you, Theo."

He let out a short, hollow laugh that contained zero humor and all the agony in the world. "It's never about me, is it? It's never about the people you leave behind to clean up the mess. It's never about Dad sitting at the Christmas table looking at an empty chair and refusing to eat. It's never about Mom redecorating the living room every six months because if she sits still for five minutes, she starts crying about the daughter who hates her."

"Theo, stop. Please."

"It's never about Abbie asking me when Aunt Emma is coming to her birthday party. She asks me every week, Emma. And every week I have to look my daughter in the eye and invent a new lie because my sister couldn't be bothered to check in."

My vision blurred. The cold energy drink was trembling so violently in my hand it was clicking against my rings. The concrete deck felt like it was tilting beneath my feet, pulling me into the deep end.

"I can't do this right now," I whispered, taking a step backward. "I can't."

"Of course you can't," Theo said, his voice dropping into something ragged. "Because that's what you do, right? That's your specialty. You run. You ran from Mom and Dad. You ran from me. You run from every single person who tries to love you the second it gets heavy. And look at you—you're doing it right now."

I turned toward the glass exit doors. My legs were moving, carrying me away from his voice, away from the weight of the truth, away from the look on his face that I knew would haunt me for the rest of my life.

His voice followed me through the door.