Chapter Eight
Aubrey
“You know you’re being a dick, right?” I asked as Evan pulled his car out of his dad’s neighborhood. We had a thirty-minute drive back to Philly, and I planned to use every one of them to call him out on his shit.
“He deserves it.”
“No, he doesn’t. He lost your mom too. We all did.”
She’d been more of a mom to me than my mom ever was.
Both my parents had been all too eager to offload me to my grandma rather than deal with me as they moved from one air force base to another.
From the day they dropped me off and a boy named Evan wandered next door to make friends with the new girl, Mrs. Hardt had welcomed me into her home—into her family—like I was her own daughter.
She’d bought me presents for my birthday and Christmas.
Not just gifts from Evan, but from her and Mr. Hardt too.
She’d baked me cookies on game nights. She went prom dress shopping with me and taught me how to put on makeup.
She was in the front row of my graduation from culinary school, right next to my grandma.
She was warm and loving and fun and whip smart, and when she died, she took a piece of me with her that could never be replaced.
I knew the same was as true for Evan as it was for Gabe.
“He wasn’t even there,” Evan said.
“You know that wasn’t his fault.”
“He chose to stay for that fight.”
“He thought she had more time.”
The cancer diagnosis had been a shock. Aside from the occasional stomach pain, she’d seemed the picture of health.
By the time they realized it was pancreatic cancer, it had advanced to stage 4.
Her doctors came up with an aggressive treatment plan and were confident with her age and overall health that she’d have at least another year.
They did one surgery to remove what they could of the tumors, and a week later, she was gone.
Gabe made it back in time for her funeral but not to say goodbye.
I’d never seen him so hollow. The funeral was the first time since I’d known him he’d ever looked small. Like an empty candy bar wrapper that could as easily be blown away by the breeze as it could be crumpled into a ball and discarded.
I would have been the same had I not been there with Nana for her final moments. The hours spent with her by her bed, even when she’d no longer been aware I was there, brought peace for me in her passing—a closure Gabe would never have.
“Then he should have been here for Dad,” Evan insisted, his grip tight on the steering wheel. “He didn’t even stick around a week after the funeral to be here for Thanksgiving. Two days after the burial, he’s gone. You know how hard that Thanksgiving was for Dad? That Christmas?”
I did. Holidays were a big deal for the Hardt family.
Mr. and Mrs. Hardt cherished nothing more than celebrating life with the people they loved, most of all their sons.
Mr. Hardt cooked, Mrs. Hardt decorated, and together, their home transformed into the kind of scene you’d want depicted in a Norman Rockwell painting.
A moment you could capture in time and keep with you forever.
No holiday since had been the same, though Mr. Hardt did his best to honor his wife.
“He was grieving too,” I said.
“Not here. Not with us. Then he comes back two years later, and I’m supposed to welcome him with open arms?”
“I’m not saying to pretend everything is okay or not to be hurt.
I get how much it sucks to be left behind.
” Evan had distracted me from enough birthdays without so much as a phone call from my mom or dad to know how true that was.
“But your brother is here, and he’s trying, which is more than I ever got from my parents.
I’m afraid if you keep pushing him away for dealing with his pain in his own way, you’ll push him away for good.
And if that happens, the only person you’ll have to blame for him not being in your life is you. ”
I caught my breath and realized how tense I’d become. Enough that I’d almost been yelling. I peered out the passenger window and let the blur of passing buildings settle the pounding in my chest.
“Have you heard from them lately?” Evan asked. “Your parents?” The anger had softened from his voice.
“Nothing since their lawyer informed me they were dropping the case.”
Nana had left me everything when she died, which hadn’t amounted to much aside from her house.
She and my grandpa had bought it in the seventies, a few years before my mom was born, and Nana had maintained it as well as my grandpa had before he’d died.
The resale value was high, and my parents thought they should be the ones who got to cash in on it. It turned out Nana hadn’t agreed.
I’d offered to sell the house to my parents, but it wasn’t the house they wanted.
They hired a lawyer to contest the will, but Nana had changed it to make me her beneficiary almost ten years before she died, when I’d been twelve and she’d been of perfectly sound mind.
They eventually gave up, at which point I sold it myself.
It wasn’t home without Nana, and she’d want me to use the money to build my own future.
Unlike Gabe with his mom, my parents hadn’t made it to my grandma’s funeral. Hadn’t even tried to get leave. Last I heard, they were stationed in Hawaii.
“I’m sorry your parents are shitty,” Evan said.
I blew a bitter laugh through my nose. “Me too. Gabe’s not, though.”
Evan shot me a look before returning his eyes to the road. “You still have a crush on him or something?”
My stomach flipped, but I forced my voice even. “That ended when we were still in high school.”
A few resurfacing butterflies didn’t make it any less true.
All the heated skin and restless energy I’d had in response to Gabe recently was just a holdover from the kiss, and the kiss had meant nothing.
A simple favor between friends. I didn’t imagine him as Prince Charming and dream of marrying him anymore.
And thoughts of anything else, I flung from my mind.
“He is my friend, though,” I added, “and even if you say different, I think you need him. I think you need each other. He’s your brother, and he loves you.”
I’d always wished for that sibling love—a built-in best friend who would stand by you no matter what and keep you from ever truly being alone. To a military brat who had no friends because I’d moved every two years when my parents got assigned to a new base, it was all I ever wanted.
Then my parents left me with my grandma, and I got Evan. He was my brother in all the ways that counted. And even still, what we had didn’t compare to the innate closeness he and Gabe shared throughout our childhood.
He could be pissed at Gabe all he wanted, but I wasn’t sure I could forgive him if he threw that kind of bond away.
I pulled out my phone and sent a message to Gabe.
Me: You okay?
He responded right away.
Gabe: All good
I doubted that, but then again, most of us hadn’t been all the way good for at least two years. Some days, good didn’t feel attainable anymore. Not when the people we loved most were missing.
Gabe didn’t have to deal with it alone anymore. I may have left with Evan, but I wanted him to know I was here for him too. Especially now that we’d gone all in on our friendship.
Me: Want to grab coffee tomorrow morning?
Another immediate response.
Gabe: Yes
Gabe: Where should I meet you? I can head there after my run
He’d start training for the tournament soon. More than the workouts he already did most weeks. I couldn’t be the one to whip him into shape, but I could support him in other ways.
Me: I’ll bring the drinks to you.