Chapter Thirty-Three
Everett
Monday morning, we’re awakened by loud knocking on the cabin door.
Mila bolts upright, clutching the covers to her bare chest. “Oh my God. What time is it?”
Groggy, I open one eye and look at the clock. “Just after eight.”
“Shoot. I have to go. I have to teach class at ten.” She scrambles off the bed and starts hunting around for her clothes. Whoever is at the door pounds a few more times.
Cursing, I roll out of bed and tug on some sweatpants. Mila darts into the bathroom in her underwear, her bra dangling from one hand and her sweater balled up in the other. “I can’t find my skirt,” she whispers.
“We’ll find it. Let me deal with whoever’s here.
” On my way to the door, I run my fingers through my hair, which I’m sure is a mess.
I figure this has to be a delivery guy getting an early start on his route today, or maybe Carlos, my operations manager, has a problem that couldn’t wait.
Either way, I’m aggravated that my time with Mila has been cut short. I pull open the door.
And come face-to-face with my sister.
“Rise and shine, brother.” Like me, she has brown eyes and an athletic build, but her hair is straight and blond. This morning, it’s pulled back into her usual ponytail. She’s wearing sweatpants, a tank top, and running shoes.
I blink at her. “Hey. What are you doing here?”
“It’s good to see you, too.” She crosses the threshold and gives me a quick hug. “I texted you last night that I was driving up. I got in late.”
“I was, uh, busy last night. I didn’t look at my phone.”
My sister eyeballs me critically. “Those dark circles under your eyes are brutal. You should try my rose-hip and carrot-seed eye serum.”
“No, thanks.” Like my mom, my sister is always concocting skincare products from weird ingredients. They’re convinced Big Pharma is putting toxins into everything you can buy at the store. I glance over my shoulder at the bathroom door while Gabi turns her attention to my dog.
“Hi, Merlin!” She kneels down to greet him. “How’s my favorite therapy school dropout?” Merlin lets out a happy ruff and tries to jump up and hug her.
The bathroom door opens a crack, and I see Mila’s panicked face. She tries to mouth something at me I can’t understand, but when Gabi straightens up, she disappears behind the door.
“I thought maybe I’d catch you before you left. See if you wanted to go for a run and talk about this thing with Mom. Last night, she—” Gabi breaks off mid-sentence. Merlin has brought her something in his mouth.
Something pink and ruffled with strawberries on it.
He drops it at her feet and wags his tail, proud of his accomplishment. My sister bends down, picks it up, and holds it out. “This is a new look for you.”
“It’s, uh, not mine.”
Her eyebrows rise. “Someone left her skirt here?”
“Um… Yes?”
She cocks her head. “Yes, question mark?”
Fuck me. I have no idea if I should make some shit up or be honest. Gabi and I don’t usually keep secrets from each other, but I also want to protect Mila.
My sister gasps. “If someone didn’t leave it, does that mean the someone is still here?”
I glance toward my bedroom. My early-morning, fuck-fuddled brain cannot think of a way out of this mess.
“Whose skirt is this, Everett?” Grinning, she shakes it in my face.
That’s when the bathroom door opens. Mila comes out, wearing her sweater from last night, her underwear peeking out below. “It’s mine,” she says tentatively. “Hi, Gabi.”
Gabi’s jaw drops. The skirt falls to the floor. She looks at me, then at Mila, then turns and runs out of the cabin.
“Oh God.” Mila looks at me with tears in her eyes. “I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have come out.”
“No, no, it’s okay.” I scoop her skirt off the ground and hand it to her. “I should have told her we were…in touch.”
“She still blames me for the fire,” Mila says, staring at the skirt clenched in her fists. “For what happened to your dad that night.”
“Baby. Stop.” I put my hands on her shoulders. “You were not responsible for my dad’s heart attack that night.”
“But it was the fire that caused it! That’s the only explanation! That’s why she wouldn’t even speak to me afterward.”
“Mila, there were other things happening. Things you know nothing about.”
But it’s like she doesn’t even hear me. “This is why I haven’t been able to bring myself to reach out to her. This is what I was afraid of.”
“I’ll talk to her.”
“No, don’t!” Mila looks up at me, panic in her face. “Please. Look, let’s just—just slow down a little. This is a lot.”
“What do you mean, slow down?”
“I mean, the last couple days have been really intense. I think it would be a good idea just to sort of…pause. Take a breath.” She hurriedly puts on her skirt. “Don’t you?”
No. Fuck no.
But I’m not going to push her. “If that’s what you want.”
“I just think it’s best. I need to get my mom home from the hospital, and you have things you need to focus on, and I think some time to just process everything would be good.”
“Okay,” I say stiffly.
We don’t kiss goodbye.
After Mila has gone, I throw some clothes on, put Merlin on the leash, and head over to the house.
As I approach, I spot my sister sitting on one of the rocking chairs on the back porch.
Her thighs are tucked against her chest, and she’s got her arms wrapped around her legs.
Her eyes look puffy and her nose is red, as if she’s been crying.
I hate it when my sister cries. It stirs up bad memories.
I mount the steps slowly, put Merlin in the house, and drop into the chair next to Gabi’s. For a minute or so, there’s just silence between us.
She speaks first. “I’m sorry.”
“I’m sorry, too.”
“What for?”
“I should have told you.”
“It’s none of my business.” She rests her chin on her knees. “Although seeing her come out of your bathroom with no pants on was a pretty big shock.”
“I wasn’t expecting company,” I say dryly.
She’s silent for a moment. “How long has it been going on?”
“That’s an interesting question.” I lean back in the chair and set it in motion.
Gabi picks up her head and stares at me. “Have you been in touch with her all these years?”
“No, no. I never talked to her after the fire. I just thought about her from time to time. Then I saw her downtown a couple weeks ago, and it stirred up some old things.”
“Did she move back here?”
“No. Her mom had surgery, and she’s here for a month or so to help her recover.”
“Oh.” Gabi goes silent again, lowering her chin.
“What the hell happened with you guys?”
At first, more silence. Then, slowly, “It was a combination of things.”
“Like what?”
“Things we did. The way we reacted. We were only eighteen, you know? Feelings were so big.”
“Feelings about what?”
She takes a deep breath. “We had this pact. The four of us.”
She doesn’t need to tell me who “the four of us” are. Gabi, Mila, Yasmine, and Rachel were inseparable from before I can remember. And, of course, there was Lydia. “What kind of pact?”
She shifted in her chair. “We’d promised Lydia that on her birthday in August, we’d do something that involved facing a huge fear. The idea was to live one night like it was our last. In honor of her.”
“Okay,” I say, still unclear on how everything connects.
“Her birthday was August tenth. The night of the fire.”
“Oh shit.” Events of that night come back to me piece by piece.
What happened at the bakery.
What happened at home later that night.
The rumors flying through town the next day.
“Each of us had a different task to complete.” A pause. “I mean, you know what I did.”
I hear the sorrow in her voice, and that gut instinct to protect her kicks in. “You were right to do it.”
“Sometimes it doesn’t feel that way when I remember what happened afterward.”
“You did the right thing, Gabi.” My voice is firm. She might have doubts about her actions that night, but I don’t.
“I don’t know, Everett.” She wipes tears from beneath her eyes. “The price was really high. And I wasn’t the only one who had to pay it.”
“Nothing that happened was your fault. If anything, it was mine.”
She sniffs. “Either way, my life imploded that night, and I did not handle it well. Dad was in the hospital. Mom was a wreck. You had to deal with the police. We knew we’d lose the bakery.
We thought we might lose the farm. Suddenly everything was scary and uncertain, and I took it out on my friends. ”
“It’s been ten years. Have you ever thought about reaching out to them? Making amends?”
“Of course I have.” Fresh tears slip down her cheeks.
“Every New Year’s, it’s my resolution. To patch up those friendships.
To own up to what I did wrong and beg forgiveness.
But it means digging up some dark shit that I’ve kept buried all these years.
It means revisiting the worst night of my life. ”
She lifts the bottom of her tank top to her face and wipes her eyes. “So somehow every year, I make excuses to avoid it. But I hate myself for being so weak.”
“I’ll tell you the same thing I told Mila—it’s not too late. There’s no statute of limitations on reconnecting with old friends.”
“I know.” She goes silent, and, for a moment, the only sound comes from the sparrows and chickadees in the trees behind the house. “I’ll reach out to her. It’s time.”
“You know, it kind of surprises me that you didn’t reckon with all this before. You’re so into health and wellness and ‘alignment’. It’s your entire career.”
“I’m into other people’s health and wellness and alignment,” she clarifies. “And it’s my career for a reason—I focus outward, while my clients focus inward.”
We’re both silent for a moment.
Then she says, “I quit my job.”
A sharp turn of my head. “You did? Why?”
“I don’t want to work in corporate anymore. No more overpriced hotel spas and soulless franchises. That’s not how you make people feel better.” She shakes her head. “I want to do my own thing.”
“Like cuddle counseling?”
She reaches over and pokes me. “It was cuddle therapy, not cuddle counseling. And don’t knock it—I helped a lot of people and earned money to pay off my grad school loans.”
“Doesn’t matter. Getting paid to hug people is weird, and I will always knock it. It’s my job as a brother.”
She sticks her tongue out at me.
“So what will you do now?”
“I’m still figuring that out. But I gave my two weeks. In the meantime, I thought I’d move back here. Live with Mom. Help at the farm.” Her voice gets quiet. “It’s not like I don’t owe you.”
“Does that mean you’ll judge the pie contest at Founder’s Day?”
“Oh, hell no.”
I poke her. “Brat.”
She pokes me right back. “Bully.”
I smile at the old nicknames. “Mom will be glad to have you back. And I’d be grateful for the help around here.”
“Then that’s what I’ll do.” She rises to her feet. “Want some coffee?”
“Yes, please.”
“Be right back.” She goes into the house and returns a couple minutes later with two steaming mugs. After handing one to me, she sits in the rocker again. “So, tell me what’s going on with Mila. She always had the biggest crush on you, as baffling as that is.”
“I’m not sure what’s going on. We’ve spent some time together over the last couple weeks, and it’s been good. But she just asked to take a step back.”
“She did?”
“She says she needs to catch her breath.”
“That’s my fault,” Gabi says. “I just shocked the hell out of her, and Mila always was a little skittish. I can talk to her.”
“It’s not just that. She went through a lot with her ex-husband, and she’s only been divorced about six months. She told me up front that she didn’t really want to start anything.”
“I didn’t even realize she got married.” Gabi sounds sad. “We always promised each other we’d be each other’s bridesmaids.” She sips her coffee. “I wonder if Mila had a big wedding.”
“No clue. All I know is that her mother was critical of all her choices.”
Gabi makes a noise from the back of her throat. “Her mother was a real piece of work.”
“Still is.”
“And Mila never knew her dad. That has to mess with you.”
“Yeah.”
“Man.” Gabi sighs.” Are we all just destined to spend our lives working through the shit our parents handed us?”
I take a sip of my coffee. “Probably.”
My mom opens the screen door and steps out onto the porch. “Anybody want pancakes?”
My sister and I both raise our hands.
“They’ll be ready in a few.” She looks at Gabi. “He tell you about Mila?”
“Mom.” I glare at her.
“He did,” says Gabi.
“Did you notice the way he talks about her?”
I stand up. “Okay.”
“What? I’m just saying.” My mother shrugs before returning to the kitchen.
“She’s right, you know.” Gabi rises to her feet. “There’s definitely a way.”
“There’s no way,” I say, annoyed.
She’s laughing now. “Oh, there is totally a way.”
I roll my eyes and open the screen door, giving her a light boot in the ass as she enters the house. But after the tears, it’s good to see her smiling.
And there might be a way I talk about Mila.
More importantly, there’s a way I feel about her.
I’m just not sure what to do about it.