Chapter 25 #2
I take a deep breath as my sister, my baby sister, wraps me in a jasmine-scented hug. I can feel a release of the impending sense of doom that’s been sitting like an anchor on my chest for weeks. All the lies. All the guilt. All the fear—it had nothing to do with Jules at all. It was all me.
“I just thought it was something I had to do,” I say into her tangled hair.
“Art isn’t stable. I thought if I could have a sure thing, something people would respect, I’d be safe, somehow.
But all I did was dig myself into a hole of resentment and caffeine-fueled dissertation research.
I’ve been grinding for so long I forgot why I started in the first place. ”
“I just don’t get why you didn’t tell me sooner,” Jules says as she pulls away. “Why did you think I wouldn’t be supportive?”
“I tried. But you said you were counting on me,” I remind her. “to show the Warrens you came from a good family.”
“Oh Stelly, I’m so sorry,” Jules says, and I can see her mind whirring back to our first conversation in my cabin. “I didn’t mean to put that kind of pressure on you. If I had known…”
The flight attendant comes by and passes us each a pack of pretzels as the fasten seatbelt sign turns off. Jules, who I take it didn’t have time for brushing her teeth, let alone breakfast, collects no less than seven.
“I was so nervous about making a good impression with Patricia that I didn’t even think about how unfair it was to throw it on you, too,” she says, “And, for the record, you did show them how awesome my family is. Harry loves you. At dinner last night, Patricia and Arthur wouldn’t stop talking about how impressed they were with you. Even Matthew seems to like you!”
I suck in a pained breath. Will I ever hear Matthew’s name again without feeling the uncontrollable urge to smash something?
It would be so easy to blow his cover right now—to spill everything to Jules and make him miserable, too.
But like Caleb said, it wouldn’t matter.
And I’m not interested in blowing up Matthew’s life, even if he is a worthless megadouche.
“So what’s your plan?” Jules asks almost unintelligibly as she empties a bag of pretzels into her mouth. “When do we get to see Stella Olsen’s first art show?”
“One step at a time, Jules,” I tell her. Leave it to Jules the dreamer to get way ahead of herself. “I still can’t fathom the thought of actually quitting. It feels like I’m giving up.”
“Babe, leaving something that’s wrong for you isn’t the same as giving up!”
“That’s easy for you to say. You’re, like, the queen of effortlessness. You love your job, and your fiancé, and everything about your life.”
“Are you serious?” she asks. “Do you remember how many times you’ve had to talk me out of staying with yet another deadbeat boyfriend? The midnight phone calls you fielded when I was lost and alone in California feeling like I’d made a terrible mistake?”
“Honestly, no,” I answer. “I mean, I remember the boyfriends. But I remember you leaving for LA, and the next thing I knew you had some fabulous salon job with a thousand friends and were loving your life.”
“Stella!” she laughs, “I was a hot mess! I flip flopped for years before I started working at Sweetie’s. When I left Seattle, I thought I wanted to be a stylist, remember?”
“Well, I guess, but—”
“And when that didn’t work out, I started doing jewelry design. Jewelry! A disaster. For one very regrettable summer, I even tried to act.”
I run through the memories of late-night conversations with Jules my first few years of college. The freak outs. The ups and downs. The amount of times I nearly jumped on a plane to LA because I was so worried about her. Could I have projected my own narrative onto Jules’s life?
Certainly wouldn’t be the first time.
“It took me six years to figure my shit out,” she says emphatically, “And I’m still not even close to where I want to be in my career.
But, even though it took a whole lot of trial and error, I finally love what I’m doing.
If you want to live a full life, your life, you’ve got to take risks.
You’ve got to be willing to fall on your face and trust yourself to pull you up again!
But nothing will ever happen for you if you aren’t willing to jump. ”
Jules may not be physically shaking me by the shoulders, but her words are doing the trick.
Because even if I haven’t wanted to admit it, she’s right.
I may have lost Caleb, but I still have control over my own life.
And just because he’s gone doesn’t mean the courage I felt around him has to go, too.
“And if it’s a money thing—" she continues gingerly.
“It’s not a money thing.”
At least, not completely.
“Well if it was,” she offers, “Harry and I would love to help. I could give you some cash to get back on your feet!”
“Nope, not happening,” I tell her in no uncertain terms. I may be coming to terms with accepting vacation invites, but I’m still not taking money from my sister.
“C’mon, Stella. We could sell one of our freaking table settings and pay your rent for the month. You can call it a loan if it makes you feel better.”
I smile at her. If I’m really going to drop out of my PhD program, it would be nice to have one less thing to worry about. But despite my pittance of a paycheck, I’ve saved up enough for at least a few months of floating aimlessly before I really have to start worrying.
“Thanks, Jules,” I tell her, and mean it. “But I think this is something I have to do on my own.”
Jules looks mildly disappointed, but she doesn’t argue. She knows me well enough to know this is one matter I’m unlikely to budge on.
I grab her hand and squeeze.
“I could use your moral support, though. I definitely see at least one three a.m. ‘what have I done’ call in your near future.”
She smiles.
“I’ll be armed and ready. Just promise me one thing, ok?”
“Anything.”
“No more secrets.”
I swallow, the familiar ball of guilt and anxiety swelling up in my throat like a peach pit. But no matter how much I want to get back at Matthew, I promised I’d keep his secret. If I tell her about Caleb now, everything I risked for that will go up in smoke.
“No more secrets,” I repeat back to her. I want to believe I’ve learned my lesson about lying to Jules. But, I remind myself with a stab of pain, I doubt either of us will ever see Caleb again.
I grip my armrest and hope she mistakes it for fear of heights.
Maybe, I think, some secrets are meant to go down with the ship.