Chapter 25
25
August
O ut of the corner of my eye, I see the red flash of Tyler’s brake lights at the four-way stop at the end of our street. It takes every ounce of self-control I possess not to bolt through Sophie’s blockade and charge after him. Whatever this raging instinct is, it’s all-consuming. Pulsing and physical. And it’s pushed me too close to the edge.
I turn away from Sophie, needing movement. Needing space.
I rip open the sliding glass door at the far end of the dining room, hoping she won’t follow me.
I cross over the dead grass looking for some wood to chop or perhaps a hole to dig with my bare hands, but the only thing close is the rotting, overgrown garden beds I’d planned to rebuild next spring. No time like the present.
I don’t bother with gloves or even a hammer as I begin the dismantling process by kicking one board in the framed rectangle loose with my heel and then flattening it under my weight. I toss the weath ered wood into the burn pile several yards from the greenhouse. By the fourth board, I’m huffing something fierce, and my heel is on fire.
Sophie moves into my periphery. Because of course she followed me. “If you would have discussed this possibility of surgery with her months ago, she would have told you she didn’t want it.” Each word Sophie speaks is evenly spaced and carefully devoid of emotion, but I’m an expert at plucking out even the smallest hint of judgment when it comes to my sister.
“She can’t possibly know what she wants.” I tear another board from a box with nails so rusted they break in half. “She’s sixteen.”
“So is your plan to strong-arm her into having brain surgery? Be reasonable, August.”
I pause mid-kick to wipe my brow. “Oh? The same way I should be reasonable and allow her to date an eighteen-year-old who’s likely filling her head with all sorts of nonsense right this second? I think it’s fair to say you and I have two very different definitions of that word.”
She crosses her arms over her chest, and I can’t help but notice she didn’t bother to grab a jacket on her way out. The thin thermal she’s in might have long sleeves, but there’s zero chance she’s not freezing in this weather. “If you’re insinuating I’m somehow to blame for encouraging her relationship with a guy who can understand her in a way neither one of us can, I don’t buy it. You don’t believe that any more than you believe Tyler’s the enemy.”
I jump to flatten another board under my weight, then bring my hands to my hips. “Gabby is my sister. I can handle her on my own.”
“And was that back there—” she twists to point toward the dining room—“an example of you handling it? You cutting her off without listening to a thing she said? You confiscating her phone? You grounding her because she refuses to be a tally mark on some surgeon’s chance at a medical breakthrough?” She marches toward me. “You told her what she was going to do without asking her a single question. And honestly, even if you had asked her, I doubt she would have felt safe enough to share her real feelings with you in that hostile environment.”
I lif t my gaze to her tense face. “And I suppose she’s shared all those real feelings with you?”
Sophie hesitates a beat too long before she simply says, “Yes, she has.”
This shouldn’t rub me the wrong way—I have enough working brain cells to know that much—and yet the twisting sensation in my gut can’t be ignored. Five months ago I was thrilled Gabby had a trusted female to confide in other than Aunt Judy and Tyler’s mother. Back then, Sophie and I had felt like two players on the same team, a united front with the same goal: Gabby’s best. But Gabby’s best, as it turns out, is far more ambiguous than I realized before tonight.
I think about everything Gabby could have told Sophie in confidence—all the hours they’ve spent together carpooling from one place to another, taking ASL classes at the theater and attending church on Sunday mornings. Not to mention all the days Sophie has been here with me. With us.
Because in every way that matters, Sophie’s become a part of us.
The revelation comes unbidden, and it’s enough of a blow to my ego for me to launch the last plank of wood to the burn pile and shrug out of my flannel.
“Here,” I say, extending it out to her. “Take this.”
“I don’t need your—”
“You’re shivering.” I don’t lower my offering. “Please, just put it on.” There are few things I can control at the moment, and regulating Sophie’s body temperature so I can vent outside like an angry fool is one of them.
Our stare-down doesn’t last long.
She takes the flannel.
I bend at the waist, hands on my knees as I catch my breath and fight to calm my racing thoughts when I hear her tug it on. “I know you’re not the person I’m most angry at, Sophie—I’m sorry. I...” I make a study of my boots and release a frustrated growl that comes from somewhere deep. Somewhere dark. “I don’t know how to fix this.”
When she says nothing in reply, I lift my chin. And for the first time, the compassion I find in her gaze scares me.
“ Maybe you need to ask yourself what you’re really trying to fix, August.”
“My sister’s hearing,” I retort immediately.
She wraps my shirt tighter around herself. “I think it’s much more than that.”
We’re in a standoff again, only this time, I’m not sure which one of us will break first.
It’s her.
“Are you going to burn that tonight?” She points to my pile of random, haggard wood. “It’s supposed to rain most of next week, so tonight might be your only chance.”
I drag my eyes from her to the garden shed, where I keep the lighter fluid. I march over to it, and within minutes, I’ve started a fire I hadn’t planned on, tending to it with a long, skinny branch. Sophie made use of the time by carrying out two crusty garden stools from inside the greenhouse. The tops are hand-painted with mushrooms, caterpillars, and butterflies—my mother’s handiwork from when I was still living under her roof. Seeing them out here is a painful reminder that she’s no longer here and won’t ever be again.
Sophie plants the chairs a safe distance away from the fire and gestures for me to join her.
She clasps her hands between her knees. “I’ve told you things about my brother and about my broken family dynamics that I’ve never shared with anyone,” she starts as soon as I sit and poke the stick in the ground beside my stool. “I told you what happened to me at sixteen and about the realities of my life when I lived in New York. You know my failures as an actress and insecurities about returning to the stage and the fears I’m currently facing. And do you know how you’ve responded to me each and every time?”
I trace the angles of her face in the firelight and wait for her to answer her own question.
“With kindness and understanding.”
I flick my eyes away from her as her cool hand closes around mine.
“Please give me a chance to show you the same. I hope you know you can trust me.”
I want to tell her it’s not as simple as she makes it sound. That some of these hurts are attached to strings with no ends. That if she tugs too hard on the wrong one, all of them, all of me , will unravel.
“I don’t know what more you want me to say.” It’s an honest answer, even if it’s not the one she’s hoping for. “There are multiple reasons I think the surgery is the best thing for Gabby’s future—”
“I don’t want to talk about Gabby; I want to talk about you .”
Her declaration stops me short, and I twist on my stool, catching her eyes in the glow of the fire. “Okay. What about?”
“Tell me the story of how your parents died.”
The searing blade of a knife stabs me between the ribs. “You already know how they died.”
“You’ve told me the facts, yes. The train accident in India. The phone call from your aunt. Gabby’s hospital stays and diagnosis. An attorney informing you of your parents’ wishes for Gabby’s guardianship. The small inheritance they left to you both and your move back to Petaluma from LA.” Her gaze is pointed as she presses her hand to her heart. “But none of those facts tell me anything about what happened in here—what’s still happening in here . I’m your girlfriend, August. I want to know you. I care about you. I...” Her lips stop, but her silence speaks for her, and it’s impossible not to feel every inch of the coward I’ve become. I drop my gaze to the patch of dry grass under my feet.
My head buzzes with the dissonance of conflicting thoughts. “I want to know you,” she said . But what’s lurking in my past is not a one-time confession. It’s not something that was done to me, but rather something I did. Something I chose and continued choosing even after I knew the hurt my deception had caused. There’s no light switch I can flip that will erase the years of heartache I caused my parents after I sold out my faith for a dream that never delivered. And there’s no redemption plan that will bring my parents back after they died serving a God who hadn’t bothered to answer their prayers.
“I do n’t see how dredging up the past will fix anything,” I say, hoping the hitch in my voice is disguised by the crackling fire.
“It might not, but how can you heal if you’re unwilling to face whatever it is you keep shoving down?”
“Not all fears are equal, Sophie.” I can tell by her body language she doesn’t miss the defensive edge in my tone. “I’d never force you to go down to hang out in the wine cellar or audition on a stage. Not even in the name of healing .”
Sophie goes still beside me, and even when the fire pops and a board breaks, she remains tense. “I actually had an audition last week.”
This stuns me. “What?”
“Technically, it was a callback. It wasn’t on a stage, but it was in front of a casting director and his crew.” I remain frozen as she twists her body toward me. Her knee bounces in time with my hammering pulse. “Dana sent in an initial audition video of me without my permission, and strangely enough, the director emailed to ask if I’d do a live audition over their online platform.”
It’s everything I can do to keep my voice level. “And you kept this from me because...?”
“Because I didn’t think anything would come from it. I wasn’t even sure I’d be able to perform a full song, let alone that they’d have a lead role in mind for me. They’ve asked if I would fly down to LA for a final reading but—”
I stand and move toward the fire, gripping the poker stick so hard I’m sure it will snap. “Is that where the show is—LA?”
“No,” she says softly. “It’s a traveling production that requires a twelve-month contract.”
Her words send a jolt of pain through me, and I wonder if she can see it on my face. “And you told them you’d go?”
“Of course I didn’t.” While firelight dances across her features, she stands and squares up to me. And without the slightest hint of reservation, she grips the poker stick, her closed fist brushing the top of mine. “I told them I needed time to talk to my boyfriend and figure a few things out before I gave them an answer. It’s what I wanted to talk to you about tonight before ... well, before everything happened.”
The reminder of the mess I created with my sister does little to steady my mind. But soon I’m studying the perfect swell of Sophie’s lips, the thin line of her jaw, and the slight arch of her neck, and my desire for her flares brighter than the fire at my back.
I quickly tamp it down. “You want me to give you permission to go.”
“No, August.” She shakes her head and gives me a tentative smile. “I’m hoping you’ll give me a reason to stay. I’m hoping you’ll tell me you see a future for us. I’m hoping you feel the same for me as I feel for you.” Her grip tightens on the branch as mine begins to yield. “Because I love you.”
Her words are like oxygen to a dying soul, and it’s simultaneously the best and worst thing to hear. Because I know what she can’t possibly understand: that loving me is a mistake. Tonight should have clued her in on that, but Sophie is as resilient as she is forgiving. Which is ironically one of the qualities I love most about her.
For less than a second, I imagine what I’d do if I only had my own needs to consider. How I’d grip her waist and kiss her until she understood everything I felt without ever having to speak a single word of it. But I have more than my own needs to consider. That’s what I understand about love now versus what I understood when I was only interested in chasing after my own selfish desires: I was hurting the very people who refused to give up even when I gave them zero reason to hope.
When I relinquish control of the poker, Sophie’s beautiful bottom lip begins to tremble. It’s the pain that crosses her features that spurs me to find a voice, even if it’s not my own.
Because she deserves better from me. She’s always deserved better.
“You asked me to be honest with you.” I find her eyes and swallow the bitter taste on my tongue warning me not to do this. Warning me to lock these lying words up and to throw away the key before I ruin everything. “Are you sure that’s what you want?”
Her nod is almost imperceptible, and I hate myself for the hurt I can already see blooming in her eyes.
“I told you in the very beginning that I’d never want to be the reason you missed out on an opportunity to use your talents.”
“August, you can’t be serious—”
“I think you should take the contract if it’s offered to you.”
For nearly a minute she studies me as if she doesn’t know me at all, and maybe never did. “Is that all you have to say to me? That you hope I move away?”
No , I think. That’s not even close to all I have to say.
But I know what will happen if she stays. I will disappoint her the same way I have disappointed everyone else in my life. And it will cost her something precious. Maybe not her life, maybe not her hearing, but perhaps the very thing that took my breath away the first time Sophie Wilder stepped into my life. Her light.
And that price tag is too much to bear.
“I think we both need to take some space and figure out what the future looks like ... on our own.”
After one last shattering look of disbelief, Sophie strips off my flannel, tosses it to the stool, and strides back toward my house. I nearly run after her then, but something in my subconscious holds me back. Because deep down I know that even if it kills me, letting Sophie go is the most loving thing I can do for her.