Chapter One #2
“What? You’d rather I get expelled for breaking some asshole’s nose?”
“No! I’d rather you didn’t break anyone’s nose!” I tipped my head back, closing my eyes. The sun warmed my face. Somewhere close by, a bird sang its song. When I looked back at my sister, her eyes hardened, daring me to throw down the guardian card. It was overdue and completely worthless.
Some of the girls from high school I followed on Instagram chose to become parents at twenty-six. I hated every single one of them.
“You didn’t break his nose,” I said. She furrowed her brow. “Nearly, but no dice.”
Her lip twitched. “Damn. Guess I’ll try harder next time.”
Together, we crossed the lot. My car had only been parked in the sun for a few minutes, but the inside already tipped from uncomfortable to sweltering.
I made sure Phoebe had her seatbelt on before driving off.
She stuck her head out the window like a dog, effectively cooling off and delaying the rest of this unpleasant conversation.
I didn’t mind. I stuck my hand out the window, letting the breeze rush through my fingers, wondering how our dad managed to get through the tough talks with a smile on his face.
My eyes burned. I pretended it was sweat.
Once we reached our apartment building, Phoebe was out of the car before I even put it in park. I stepped out, watching her dart across the lot.
“Outrunning me? That’s your plan?”
She flipped me off over her shoulder.
I trailed behind, wincing as she stomped through the ring of flowers near the entrance of our building.
The only reason we managed to nab a unit in such a coveted area was my best friend’s boyfriend, Noah, and the endless list of Guys He Knew—when the apartment across the hall opened up a few months ago, it was ours before it officially hit the market.
The rent was expensive, but utilities were included, and I could walk to work.
Plus, it wasn’t our dead dad’s house.
Phoebe slammed the Door Close button repeatedly as I collected our mail and approached the elevator, but as the doors slid shut, a hand slipped out, stopping them. She groaned.
“Goddammit.”
I stepped into the elevator, shooting our elderly neighbor a smile. To Phoebe, I said, “You should’ve taken the stairs.”
She rolled her eyes.
It was supposed to get easier, wasn’t it? Nine months of backbreaking effort and yet I could’ve been standing in the teachers’ lounge in September, answering a phone call from the hospital, understanding the nurse’s grim tone before anyone had to say the words out loud.
Phoebe bolted when the doors opened. With a sigh, I made my way down the hall, surprised to find her waiting outside the apartment door for me. She shrugged.
“Lost my key.”
“Of course you did.” I handed her mine, along with the mail. “Go ahead. I’ll be there in a minute.”
She let herself into the apartment without a word.
In the months after our dad’s death, I read several parenting books in a desperate attempt to feel in control of an uncontrollable situation.
Phoebe had been drifting fast, her moods souring, patience thinning, and each book assured nothing I said would be right in a teenager’s eyes.
I didn’t find it quite as comforting when I used to be Phoebe’s hero.
Now, sometimes it felt like I hadn’t done anything right since taking her in, and even that might’ve been a mistake.
I couldn’t imagine her anywhere else. But maybe she could.
I drifted across the hall and banged my forehead against the door three times. A beat later, Arden opened it, her presence illuminating something in me. Even when everything else caught fire and burned to ash, I had her, so things could never be irreversibly bad.
“Hey,” she said cautiously, dark eyes studying my face. I should’ve been at work, not barging in on her day off. But she’d been my rock for years, especially since Dad died, and it would be a disservice to her if I held off on a vent session when I needed one.
“I used to be a happy person, right?” I asked. She winced.
“Uh-oh.”
I swept past her, plunking down on the green velvet chaise. “I was joyful at one point. Fun to be around. A good person,” I continued, looking to her for verification. She folded her arms, eyebrows pinched thoughtfully.
“You are a good person,” she said. “Present tense.”
“But not a happy one.”
“Well, life screwed you over. It takes a while to bounce back after something like that.”
She sat beside me, crossing her legs at the ankles; the girl drew eyes by simply existing with her curly black hair and pink apple cheeks, though being perceived was her worst nightmare.
When she found out a majority of pharmacy patrons referred to her as the hot pharmacist, she called in sick for three days straight.
“What happened?” she asked. I dropped my face into my hands, letting out a short laugh, and delved into the story.
I wasn’t proud of how often I showed up at Arden’s to vent.
By some miraculous twist of fate, Northeastern paired us up freshman year and we imprinted on each other like baby ducks.
Over the years, we moved into a crappy apartment, worked crappy part-time jobs to pay rent while finishing our degrees, and spent a lot of time lamenting terrible dates.
She fell in love with Noah the same week she was accepted into her doctorate program and within six months, I met Shawn.
It felt like we were meant to experience life in unison until my dad died, I took custody of my sister, and my boyfriend bailed because it was too much.
Now, Noah had recruited me to help pick an engagement ring, and I hadn’t moved an inch.
I hated the jealousy I felt toward my best friend for having her shit together.
More than that, I hated mourning my father and the life I would’ve lived if a pickup truck hadn’t run a red light.
No amount of positives could lift me up from that.
“First thing’s first,” Arden said once I finished the recap. “That principal is a bitch.”
“Yes.”
“And she deserves to be fired.”
“Yes.”
“And for her house to burn down with her husband still inside it.”
“Well—”
“Too far. I take it back. But they both suck.” She brushed a curl out of her eyes, her expression softening as she studied my face. “She sucks. Has Phoebe been a little unhinged? Sure. But she was defending herself, so the expulsion conversation was out of bounds.”
I dug the heels of my hands into my eyes until I saw stars. “Yeah.”
“Phoebe will be fine. She’s strong. Once she’s past the angry phase, things will go back to normal,” she said. “Well, not normal. But a new normal where things are okay.”
“That’s a nice thought. Maybe in this alternate universe, Phoebe tells me why she has to defend herself at school. Maybe she likes me again. Maybe I don’t cry in the shower.”
Arden’s fingers wrapped around my wrist, squeezing gently. I lowered my hands to meet her gaze. “You’re not failing, Vi,” she said. “That’s not what this is.”
“I have no idea what I’m doing,” I replied, throat tightening against the words. “Feels like failing to me.”
“You’re allowed to tread water for a while.”
“It’s been nine months.”
“Grief doesn’t have a time limit.”
“It does when you’re in charge of a kid.”
She bit her lip and looked toward the kitchen, unable to dispute this. My dad never fell apart in front of us—he always had his shit together, even if he was pretending for our benefit. I needed to do the same for Phoebe. I just had no idea how.
“So, what are you gonna say?” she asked. “To Phoebe.”
I groaned. “God. I don’t know.”
“You have to stop giving her the power, Vi,” she said. “She’s a kid. She needs an authority figure.”
“She needs our dad.” I swallowed over the tightness in my throat. “I was the cool older sister. She’s never going to see me differently.”
“She will if you make her.”
Like it was easy. I climbed to my feet, emitting a heavy sigh. “I should go. Hopefully she hasn’t bolted down the fire escape.”
Arden stood, wiping her hands on her shorts. “Why don’t you guys come over for dinner? We’re ordering pizza. Phoebe can play video games with Noah and we can talk shit in the kitchen.”
A rush of love swept through me. As jealous as I was of Arden, I couldn’t have been more grateful to have her in my life. I would quite literally die without her.
“That sounds great,” I said. She pulled me into a tight hug.
“Three things,” she prompted, her voice soft in my ear. I squeezed my eyes shut.
“You. Noah. Pizza.”
“There you go.”
A little lighter on the dread, I returned to my apartment, reveling in the tiny bursts of comfort: the air-conditioning, the “cashmere woods” air freshener plugged in the wall, the message etched into the center of the steel door: At least tomorrow.
Those words were the last thing I saw before leaving each morning.
The building owner had offered to replace the door when we moved in, but something about it clutched my heart, calling to the optimist in me.
The apartment was sparse. We still lived out of boxes, despite having moved in three months ago.
After packing up our childhood home and selling it off to the highest bidder, neither of us was up for the task of settling in somewhere new.
A coffee maker and a toaster sat on the counter, mugs filled the sink, a trash can in the corner overflowed with paper plates and plastic cutlery.
Our only piece of furniture, a purple velvet couch, was given to us by Arden and Noah when they decided to invest in a sectional.
Still, it was a relief to have a place untouched by the past.
I nearly tripped on Phoebe’s backpack on my way in. I expected her to be locked away in her room, but she was lounging on the couch, absorbed in a piece of paper.
“Hey,” I said. Her head snapped up. “Arden invited us over for dinner. They’re ordering pizza.”
“Cool.” Her eyes darted to the paper clutched in her hands. “Yeah, cool. Sounds good.”
“So, we should probably talk about what happened.”
“No, yeah. For sure.”