Chapter 29
CONNOR
“Alright,” Tripp calls into the room, “Koda’s at the house and the cat has him locked in the bathroom.” Stuffing a set of car keys into his pocket, he hefts a large box in his hands. “Downstairs, this time. They’re changing it up.”
My bedroom and all of my belongings are packed away into a collection of cardboard boxes and plastic tubs, save the mini fridge that I’d kept next to my bed and the larger pieces of furniture which I spent all of last night disassembling.
This is insane. We’ve been seeing each other for a month and a half, and my life is in boxes.
When I mentioned renewing my lease two weeks ago, Julia met me with one question: ‘what if you didn’t?’
It was crazy then. It’s even crazier now.
Her argument was convincing enough; I’ve already lived with them a handful of times, what would be any different about this time – aside from everything?
I thought it was because I’d had a few beers, but when I woke up the next morning and all three of us were still on board with the idea, I told my roommates that I was leaving. That they could either fight over my room themselves or find someone else to fill it; and I felt sure of that decision.
With seven people lined up to meet them, my roommates will have no problem quickly filling the space that I’m leaving behind, but I think a part of me will miss it here; which is ridiculous, taking into consideration the fact that I know almost nothing about either of them.
They were nice to my dog, though, and one of them brought me ibuprofen once when I was hungover; I guess that’s enough, in my mind, to count as friendship.
“Is this the last of it?” Julia asks as she rounds the corner into my bedroom.
I’m not sure that I’ve ever seen her hair pulled into a ponytail like it is today, with her tattoo on display for everyone to see.
Her cuffed t-shirt is tied into a knot at the front, which she’s tucked into itself to form a small peak above the button of white denim shorts that tightly hug her thighs.
As she reaches for the last remaining item next to me, she meets me in a kiss, her lips soft and warm against mine. I let a hand wander to slide into her back pocket as Tripp carts his haul out of the door, and as we part, we follow closely behind him.
A rusted and worn sedan slides to a stop in front of the house as I pull the trunk of the SUV closed, and out of it steps a head full of soft ginger hair.
Joining my sister is her boyfriend. He’s a tall man with a trim build, though I guess most people I know look tall standing next to Irina.
His hair is darker than mine, but it shares a similar undertone of red.
My sister smiles widely as she approaches, throwing the handle of a large tote bag over her shoulder.
“What are you two doing here?” I ask as her body slams into mine. It’s nearly impossible to wipe the surprise from my features, seemingly no matter how hard I try to.
“You told me you were moving,” she says with a pat to my back. “We had a couple of days off and thought we’d help get you settled. Is that not okay?”
Her brow arches, asking a question that she won’t ask me herself, and I answer with a shake of my head.
“Of course it’s okay,” I tell her, wearing a smile as I pull her against my body again and let my arms snake around her shoulders.
It’s okay, if you don’t ask any questions.
It’s okay, if you don’t tell me that I’m making a mistake.
It’s okay, if you promise you won’t judge me for this.
Our third and final ride to the Montgomery townhouse is fast, like the others have been, and quiet, like they haven’t.
Julia’s hand rests on my thigh as we roll to a stop on the driveway, offering a small comfort to calm my racing heart.
When she was just a little kid, Irina wanted to be like me.
I think most younger siblings go through that at some point.
She copied the way that I spoke – and a lot of words that she shouldn’t have been using.
She was six years old and wearing all-black outfits because I was doing it.
There was a small stretch of time in which she even tried to walk the same way that I did.
She wanted to be like her big brother; impress me and make me proud, but that shifted as soon as I became her guardian. It was me wanting to make her proud. Now, sitting in this car with my heart in my throat, it’s me wanting to make sure that I don’t let her down again.
The loud closing of Tripp’s door and the cool air seeping through the place on my jeans, no longer covered by Julia’s hand, pull me from my own mind as I climb out of the car.
“Where are you sleeping?” Irina asks as she slides past me and into the living room, toting a box in her arms marked with yellow duct tape to indicate that it’s filled with things from my bedroom.
My features fall. If this were a cartoon, my body would drop to the floor in a puddle as my insides disappear from within their skin suit.
“Uh—” I hesitate, trying to control the frantic flitting of my eyes across the room, focusing on anything and everything that is not my little sister.
“You look like I just asked you if Santa Claus is real,” she teases, her brow lifting in a challenging arch.
“It was Christmas Eve,” I laugh.
“And I’d already known for two years,” she counters.
Dropping the box from her arms to the ground, she leans against the wall, pulling her hair over her shoulder before letting her arms cross over her chest. A hip pops to the side as she shifts her weight and twists her face into a thoughtful expression.
“It was the roommates, wasn’t it?” At the snap of my gaze in her direction, her head shakes. “Connie, you can’t keep—”
“I just didn’t want to renew the lease,” I blurt, waving my hands in an effort to shut her up. Trying to shift her attention, I point toward the small black toolbox near her feet. “Take that to the garage for me. Tripp has a place for it.”
With a skeptical purse of her lips, she pushes off of the wall, scooping the box by its handle before leaving for the garage, where her boyfriend and the partner that she doesn’t know I have are waiting.
Convincing her that I’d lied to her about Santa Claus and all of his holiday companions not being real might be easier than trying to convince her that nothing is happening in this house.
I spent so many years of our lives telling her not to keep secrets from me, and now it’s me keeping them from her.
She may not be saying it out loud, but I think she knows it.
Tucking a pair of boxes underneath my arms, I cart them up the stairs and into the bedroom that I’ll share with Tripp and Julia once my sister leaves. For now, we’ll just tell her and Grady that my things are in this room because it’s easier to keep them here.
One day, the lie will end and I’ll be subject to my sister’s judgments and analyses, but I’m not ready for today to be that day.
As I turn into the bedroom and offer a glance in the direction of the dresser, the corner of my mouth ticks up. I carefully set my haul onto the floor before reaching for the unopened package of AA batteries waiting on the dresser’s surface with warmth spreading through my chest.
It may be a small gesture to anyone on the outside looking in, but from where I stand, it means the world.
I task myself with moving through each floor of the house to put a fresh set of batteries into each of the carbon monoxide detectors, passed on my way downstairs by a giggling Julia and Irina. Their arms are locked together, their heads tucked toward each other as they trek up the stairs.
Hands come down onto my shoulders, their thumbs pressing into my muscle as I twist the detector in front of me to lock it into place. The soft touch of a pair of lips meets my skin soon after, and I turn to find Tripp offering a flick of his chin toward my task.
“You can change them however often you need to,” he tells me. “We get it.”
I’m not sure that they really do; I’m not sure that they can, but I appreciate the sentiment nonetheless.
“I don’t like lying to my sister,” I tell him, keeping my voice at a whisper as I offer a quick glance to the stairwell.
“I know,” he says. “I don’t love keeping shit from my brother, either.”
As I turn to face him, a hand reaches to cup my jaw, his thumb trailing across my lower lip before he carefully presses his own against mine.
Neither of us will say out loud the ending of our sentences, but we both know what lies beneath them.
All of us need to feel solid in this before we speak it into existence.
Irina and Brody will have opinions about the choices we’ve made, and both of those opinions hold weight.
They matter, and they can influence the breakage of something that isn’t ready to withstand them.
The machine in front of me bubbles and spurts too loudly. A glance to the clock on the stove top tells me that it’s just after one o’clock in the morning.
I haven’t slept yet, despite pleading requests from both Tripp and Jules that I get into their bed with them.
I suppose it’s our bed now, but I don’t know that it will feel that way until I get the text that Irina and Grady have made it back to their home.
I don’t really know that I’ll be able to breathe until I get that text.
A whining step and a whispered curse draw my attention as Julia carefully climbs down the stairwell and rounds the corner, her arms wrapped tightly around her middle and her head dipped low.
I respond to the gentle pinch of her lips with a shake of my head, using my chin to gesture toward the living room.
“It’s only one night,” she whispers.
“It’s more lying,” I counter.
Closing the distance between us, her chest rests against my body, her hands sitting at my hips as she pulls them close.
“It’ll be hard for them to understand,” she whispers against my skin as her lips meet my jaw. “Sometimes, it’s hard for me to understand. We’re navigating three sets of feelings, we don’t need to add any more to that.”