Chapter 21
Twenty-One
Scarlett
22 Years Old
The Hartricks’ house was just as Scarlett remembered it. The front door stuck a little more from the old paint, but she had spent so much time there during the summer that she knew which drawer the utensils were in when someone was looking for a serving spoon for one of the dishes. In the same way she knew that Paisley Hartrick had designed everything in the house, she knew that Piper had chosen the blue color for the kitchen cabinets. Knowing her way around should have made her feel less anxious, but all it did was make her confront all the wasted space in her head filled with knowledge of this family.
“You really didn’t have to come to this.” Harper gave her a solemn smile when Scarlett returned with the serving spoon. “I know this isn’t exactly comfortable for you.”
“Are funerals supposed to be comfortable?”
“You know what I mean.”
“I’m fine,” Scarlett assured her with a hand on her shoulder. It wasn’t true, but out of the two of them, reliving the ghost of ex- boyfriends past wasn’t on par with her sister losing yet another person to cancer. Scarlett knew exactly where she needed to be today, and it was beside Harper, no matter how strange it was to be inside this house. She was bound to run into Colin at some point—they could only travel in the same circles for so long before the Venn diagram overlapped—but death was the absolute worst reason for their paths to cross again.
Scarlett had only met her brother-in-law’s grandmother once at Marcos’ birthday party, but it was plain as day from all the downcast faces wandering around with plates of appetizers that everyone loved Isabel Castillo. No amount of her own loss could prepare Scarlett for how to react to all the ways people dealt with grief. She had learned a long time ago that she often said the wrong thing. What worked for her often didn’t translate to other people—Colin, mainly. Occasionally when she’d go on a camping trip with her sister, they’d travel up the Trenton Creek Pass and stop at the lookout on the way to their camping spot, and Scarlett would remember the day she had pushed Colin a little too hard and they had spent an hour in one of the most beautiful spots just outside the city, crying and holding on to each other in the cold. He had hugged her then as if she were the only thing keeping him afloat. She would remember every time after that they spent in that exact spot, kissing and touching each other in all the ways that were burned into her memory.
“I can see that far-off look in your eye, Letti. I know you think you have to be here because of Tucker, but really, I can handle it,” Harper’s voice cracked, a sure indicator that despite what she was saying, she really didn’t want Scarlett to leave.
Scarlett smiled and squeezed her sister’s side. “I will always show up for you, H. I’m going to go get you some wine.”
Harper sniffed and wiped at her eyes, clearly trying to hold it together, but she nodded. “Thank you.”
In the dining room, Scarlett found Amala pouring wine and passing out glasses to Isabel’s family, all looking worse for wear, and she got in line to grab one. It was her first time in this room today, and her eyes immediately landed on the gallery wall of family photos that had a few more frames than she remembered. Her old favorite was always the one of Colin’s dad holding a baby Colin in the air in a lunge position like he was in The Lion King while Colin’s mom stood beside him with her head thrown back in laughter. This was the kind of love Colin grew up with. There were a few staged family portraits, but the majority of the photos were pure chaos. A younger version of Colin with a toad in his hands standing beside a large white bucket next to a little version of Piper with a look of disgust on her face. The newer pictures were all from the last five years. Walker bending Talia backward on their wedding day in a kiss, Piper and Carter’s respective graduation days, and one Scarlett remembered like it was yesterday. She hadn’t expected to see herself on the wall, but there she was on her high school graduation day wearing a white cap and gown and holding on to Colin, in a navy cap and gown. His arm was tossed over her shoulder, and instead of looking at the camera, he was looking down at the top of her head with a soft expression. Like he loved her.
“Wine?” Amala waved a wine glass in front of her face, weaving her head from side to side to get Scarlett’s attention, knotless braids swaying across her shoulders. Scarlett cleared her throat to bring herself back to the present, embarrassed she had been caught staring at the wall.
“Can I get two? I’m going to bring them to Marcos and Harper,” Scarlett explained.
Amala nodded and started to pour one of the glasses. “He requested that picture to be hung up instead of his solo one.” She tipped her head in the direction of the graduation picture Scarlett had been staring at.
“Oh.” Scarlett swallowed and carefully secured the two wine stems Amala handed to her in each hand.
“Little weird to see yourself hanging up on your ex-boyfriend’s wall?”
“Yeah, I wasn’t expecting…” Scarlett’s voice trailed off.
Saving her from having to finish the end of that sentence, Amala shrugged and said, “The Harticks are weird as hell,” before leaning forward as if to tell her a secret. “But that’s why I like them. That, and because they’re the kind of people to throw someone else’s wake so they don’t have to worry about hosting a billion people when they’re grieving.”
“You seem like you’re that kind of person, too,” Scarlett said kindly.
“Of course I am.” Amala grinned. “I’m also the kind to warn you that Colin is walking over here. I love him, but I’m also a girls’ girl.”
“Shit,” Scarlett squeaked, looking over her shoulder to see a flash of blond hair headed right for her. Both sides of the dining room were open archways, so she turned her back to Colin and tried to escape out the other way, only to be blocked by several people stopping to chat under the entryway. Her body stiffened as if she could feel Colin somewhere behind her, and she squinted her eyes shut, muttering an incantation of “please go away, please go away, please go away,” to herself as if she could wish the request into existence.
“Okay,” Colin’s voice said from behind her. She jumped, not realizing that he had gotten so close. “I was just letting Amala know that Talia needed her in the kitchen, but I can go outside or something.” Scarlett winced, back still turned to him and double-fisting wine glasses as if being in his presence required her to get sloppy drunk. When she turned around to backtrack, to let him know that this was his house and it would be silly of her to demand he sit outside the whole time she was there, he had vanished. Except now it didn’t feel so great that he had done exactly what she asked.
“Yikes.” Amala flashed her teeth in a cringe, and Scarlett let her face fold in on itself, eyes shut and properly mortified.
“Fuck my life,” she whined, gesturing for Amala to leave the dining room first to heed Colin’s request for help in the kitchen. “Would you care to also go away?”
Amala let out a laugh through her nose and grinned back at her as they both paced toward the archway. “ He at least got a ‘please.’”
“I like to preface all of my requests for people to leave their own home with a please. You don’t live here, so.” Scarlett gave a casual shrug.
“I’m sure he’s unfazed.”
“Sounds about right,” Scarlett groaned. “He’ll forget about it, and I will remember it fondly when I’m awake at night, staring up at the ceiling.”
“Enjoy the lifelong anxiety!” Amala singsonged as she made her way into the kitchen.
It was going to be a very long night.
Harper was several drinks in by the time Scarlett finally gained courage enough to clear the air with Colin. However, when she peeked out on the back porch, Piper and Leo were the only ones outside. She checked out the front as well to no avail. After searching for half an hour, she was starting to think Colin had taken his job of disappearing so seriously that he had created a machine to slip into another dimension. When she finally found him in the living room, he was talking to Lucia Diaz and holding a gift bag in one hand. Not wanting to interrupt, she hovered nearby, clinging to the wall.
“I appreciated what you said about your mother at the funeral,” Colin told Lucia. “That she wasn’t perfect, but she did her best. That was my parents as well.” He seemed to harp the most on the part about imperfection, which read as odd to Scarlett considering he had only ever put his parents on a pedestal when they talked. She remembered wondering multiple times how he had gotten so lucky with two perfect parents while she had a broken but present mother and a father who hadn’t bothered to stick around. She knew from experience with Tucker that loving and losing was better than never having love at all.
Lucia nodded and offered Colin a small smile in return, her eyes watery. “We can only ever do our best. My mother was very stubborn, and sometimes that made me want to pull my hair out.” She laughed lightly, but a tear slipped down her face. Scarlett always had a hard time watching other people cry. The waterworks were never far behind, and she could feel the sting of salt in her nose from listening in on the conversation. “But she was also full of life and loved every person she met with her whole heart. I met your parents once. They were both very kind to me, even as a stranger.”
Colin bobbed his head and slowly held up the small, wrapped gift. “Admittedly, I got this for someone else. Leo tried to convince me to still give it to her, but I don’t think it will be received well, so.” Colin stretched out his hand, offering the bag to Lucia. Lucia gingerly took it, confusion creasing her face. “It’s watercolor paints and brushes.” Scarlett stilled. Even the tear rolling down her face seemed to slow. “Someone once told me they preferred this to acrylics or oils because the way the colors mixed with water reminded them of faded memories. Maybe you could use it to paint some.”
That someone was herself, Scarlett concluded, and like the photo hanging on the wall in the dining room, it made her heart ache in her chest. In her younger years, she didn’t think anything she said was worth remembering. Even now, all her friends knew her as someone who could talk for ages and never get to the point. When she had something of note to say, it often felt like it got lost in the middle of the unimportant details and side stories, but Colin had always had a superpower when it came to gleaning the most important bits from her stories. He soaked up the information like a sponge and relayed it with perfect clarity. She had assumed that he’d mostly forgotten all the details of their long pillow talk conversations, and it felt strangely gratifying to know that she had made some sort of a mark on him, no matter how small, because he had definitely left his mark on her.
In the haze of her thoughts, Scarlett missed the end of Colin and Lucia’s conversation and was woefully underprepared when Colin turned around. His eyes traced her from head to foot as he stepped aside, lifting up both hands in a show of surrender.
“I’m just going to hide in my room. It’s a little cold outside now,” he said, moving to shuffle past her. “I promise you won’t run into me again.”
“You don’t have to do that.” Scarlett reached a hand out to halt him. They both froze, anchored by the contact, and she watched his head drop to the spot she was gripping on his forearm. It was wider than she remembered, less lean like it had been from the difficulty he had with eating back then. “You weren’t supposed to hear me when I said I wanted you to go away. I’m sorry. I was mostly mumbling to myself, and I feel bad that you took me seriously. This is your house, Colin. It’d be insane of me to dictate where you get to be in your own home. I’m the intruder here.”
The Adam’s apple dipped in Colin’s throat. “You are always welcome here. You aren’t intruding.”
She wanted to argue with him, demand to know why he thought she could ever be comfortable here again, but shoved down the feeling and let go of his arm. “Thanks. I’m just here for my sister.”
“I know. I’m here for my family, too.” He was still standing so close to her that she could feel the warmth from his body and could remember every time she had wrapped herself up in him. “That, and I have nowhere else to go. Finding an apartment during a housing crisis is not easy. I’m mostly looking in Merrick, so once I find one, the likelihood you’ll accidentally run into me in Archwood will be a lot lower.”
“I lucked out with mine. The building is really old, and sometimes the plugs don’t work when I need them to, but I’m a pro at flipping the breaker since my landlord is like eighty years old and gave me a good deal to begin with. Plus I got the grant for the shop at the bottom for my art program—that’s the one where that painting I sold you was made. Thank you for the donation, by the way. It wasn’t necessary, but Theo’s going to be thrilled when he graduates and has some extra funds, I’m sure. And—” She stopped mid-sentence, noticing when Colin’s eyes shut. He always used to do that when she was rambling so he could focus on what she was saying. Keep talking to me , he had told her the first time he had done it. I listen better like this . She had fallen right back into old habits and already forgotten that they were nothing and no one to each other anymore. The reason he knew none of what she was rambling about now was because he hadn’t been there for it.
The sound of clapping saved her from having to think of a segue out of the conversation. Colin’s eyes flew open, and they both pivoted to find Leo, Piper, and two other college-aged students at the front of the living room holding massive bowls and a few grocery bags.
“Thank you all so much for coming,” Leo called out. “And thanks to the Hartricks for hosting.” He looked fondly down at Piper, who was holding a large bouquet of mini sunflowers, and Scarlett could see the affection in his eyes so clearly that it was safe to assume Harper would soon stop suggesting Leo as a viable partner for her from now on. “As much as all of us are sad, Abuelita would absolutely hate all this moping around, so we’re going to change that. This is officially a tamalada and a card game party.”
“Mutiny!” The tall blond man beside Leo shouted with a raised fist.
“Mariana, can you help people make the tamales in the kitchen?” Leo raised his grocery bag in the direction of his sister.
“Are you really designating the kitchen job to your sister right now?” Piper tsked.
Leo rolled his eyes. “She’s the second best at making them. Marcos is already in the kitchen, and I can’t ask Varo or Antonio because they suck.”
“You gonna ask me and your mom to help next?” Piper asked cheekily.
“Not you. I don’t really want all the tamales to end up on the floor when you inevitably trip over nothing.” Leo grinned down at her and received a shove to his shoulder. They both seemed to use the excuse to touch each other for longer, and if it hadn’t been obvious before, Scarlett was now sure they were fucking.
“I’m going to set up a few tables for cards and Monopoly,” Talia called out, already starting to shuffle some furniture out of the way with Walker’s help. Colin always had near perfect posture, but he seemed to straighten even more at the mention of Monopoly, and Scarlett had lost so many times to him at that exact game that she knew he was prepared to show exactly zero mercy.
“Fair warning,” Carter joined in on the chaos, throwing his arm over Colin’s shoulder as he addressed the crowd that had formed in the living room, “if you’re planning on playing Monopoly, be prepared to lose because Colin is ruthless and will win every time.”
“You’re no fun,” Colin huffed. “I need new victims. I get tired of beating you over and over and over again.”
“You did lose once,” Carter noted.
“Doesn’t count when I purposely forfeited,” Colin said.
“Why would you ever lose on purpose?” Leo demanded.
If the heat traveling up her neck was any indication, Scarlett knew exactly why he had forfeited, and she wished she could go back in time to spray herself with water. If Kashvi were here, Scarlett would thump her on the forehead for ever giving her the idea. Especially because, from the look on Carter’s face and the way he briefly glanced in her direction, he knew everything.
She whirled on Colin angrily, jabbing a finger in Carter’s direction. “You showed him?”
“What?” Colin’s eyes widened. “Showed him what?”
“I guessed,” Carter jumped in somewhat frantically.
“Colin was just easy to read,” Piper added. “He didn’t show us anything, I promise. He wouldn’t do that.”
“Piper and I had to help him escape out the window later because we were all on house arrest, and I figured he had to have a really good reason to escape.” Carter kept the same urgency in his voice, but Scarlett was already as mortified as she could get. Nothing was going to make this better.
A mixture of “You did what?” and “The window?” was shouted from across the room by Walker and Talia.
Head smarting, Scarlett scrunched her eyes shut and whispered in Colin’s direction, “Do they know about the charts, too?”
“They’ve seen one, but I didn’t show them,” Colin pleaded, touching her arm. She flinched away from his touch and looked to his sister, hoping that Piper would look clueless as to what they were talking about. But she didn’t look clueless in the slightest.
“Carter’s just really nosy,” Piper said. “I’m sorry.”
At one point, Scarlett would have given anything to be a part of this family. During the period where no one knew about their relationship, she’d had to stop herself from begging Colin to claim her in front of his family. It was highly apparent now why he was so reluctant to do so back then. “I need to get out of here,” she said before shooting Harper an apologetic look and booking it to the front door. She could vaguely hear an argument starting up as Walker’s faded parental voice echoed behind her. The sound of footsteps chasing her was the more immediate fear, though, and it propelled her faster.
Outrunning her past and all the mistakes she had made as a stupid, lovesick teenager felt like a never-ending marathon she just could not escape.
“Scarlett,” Colin called after her when she made it to her car. He was standing on the perfectly manicured front lawn by one of the hanging lanterns, both hands held to his head like he was trying to keep it from rolling off his body.
She didn’t look in his direction for long, catching her own red and tear-stained face in the rearview mirror before she started her engine and peeled away from the curb with a jerk of the wheel, leaving Colin in the dust.