Chapter Eighteen
Eighteen
ROCK SPRING, WY
“Is that it?” Phoebe leaned in, practically pressing her nose up to the glass of the bakery. “It looks sort of like it.”
“I think that’s a chocolate croissant,” I said. She threw her head back in a groan. A man jogging down the sidewalk in short shorts shot us a strange look on his way by.
“I hate this. Why can’t Google ever tell the truth? I’ll be all, ‘Hey, Google, where’s the nearest public bathroom?’ And it’ll be like, ‘Here’s an ad for toilet seats. Wet your pants, pussy.’ ”
I choked on a laugh. “Phoebe.”
“It’s not funny.” She glared at Mama Sheridan’s bakery, folding her arms over her chest. I looped my arm around her shoulders, gently guiding her away in case Mama Sheridan herself emerged to square up.
“There’s supposed to be an Italian bakery here.
I looked it up. Why can’t Dex like something normal, like cinnamon rolls? ”
“Well, that would be too easy. He’s not an easy guy.”
She cut me a look and I dug my fingernails into my palm in an effort to keep my face composed. “Maybe it’s, like, a hole-in-the-wall place. We should ask around. Someone must know.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. She charged forward with renewed purpose, head held high.
I’d been confused since she shook me awake for a mission: finding Dex’s favorite pastry, something Sicilian called granita con brioche.
Apparently his grandmother used to make them.
When I’d asked how she managed to coax the information out of him, she rolled her eyes and reminded me they were friends.
Maybe if I wasn’t so busy blowing past the flimsy boundaries we set, I could’ve been friends with him too.
We made our way down the sidewalk of a Main Street on the outskirts of Rock Spring, Wyoming.
After driving for nearly eight hours yesterday, Dex was exhausted and grumpy, so I’d suggested stopping for the night instead of trying to make it to Idaho.
The motel we ended up at only had one room available—two queens—so Phoebe and I shared a bed while Dex crashed in the other, everyone out before seven.
I didn’t mind the extra stop. It bought more time before the inevitable.
Phoebe and I asked several locals about the alleged Italian bakery and none of them knew what we were talking about. She grew more frustrated, growling under her breath in a way that would make Dex proud.
“I don’t understand,” she grumbled, tapping her phone furiously. “It says it’s here. It says it’s open. So where is it? Where the fuck is it?”
“Maybe we should just…” I trailed off when she shot me her dirtiest look. “Sorry.”
“It’s annoying.”
“It is, yeah.”
She rolled her eyes. “Of course.”
“Of course what?”
“Nothing. What were you gonna say? ‘Let’s just get something from the regular bakery and go back to the motel’? Sure. Whatever.” She brushed past me, stomping down the sidewalk. Flummoxed, I jogged to catch up.
“What was that?” I asked. She ignored me, cheeks flushed. “Phoebe.”
“Nothing.”
“What is going on?”
“I’m mad!” she yelled, wheeling around. I stumbled to a stop, my stomach lurching at the return of her glower, her raised voice, the apparent derision she felt toward me. “Oh, wait, that’s right. That’s an unfamiliar emotion to you.”
I blinked several times in quick succession, a preemptive stinging sensation radiating through my body. “What does that mean?”
“Nothing bothers you these days. Everything is A-fucking-plus all the time.” She sniffed and glanced away to hide the glassiness in her eyes.
“You’re not you anymore. And not even in, like, the ‘dad died so we’re different’ way.
From the second you had to take me in, it’s been different. You and me. It’s wrong.”
I took a shaky breath, ignoring the looks we’d begun to garner from strangers moving around us on the sidewalk.
“I’m trying, Phoebe,” I said. “What is it you want from me? What are the magic words you want me to say? Because I’ve been searching for months, and I give up.
Nothing I say is ever the right thing for you. ”
“Because it’s bullshit!” she shouted, and a tear slipped down her cheek. “It’s all fake bullshit you pulled from a parenting book you shouldn’t have even had to read. I want to know what you think, not fucking Wanda Knows Fuck All M.D.”
“Okay, fair enough.” I swallowed hard, taking a small step closer to her. “But can’t you just say that to me instead of yelling it on a public sidewalk?”
She kept glaring. The tears in her eyes sparkled under the sun. “This is what I’m talking about. A year ago, you wouldn’t be asking me not to yell in public, you’d fight back. Yell at me! Call me a bitch! Punch me in the face! I deserve it!”
“Stop.” I moved in closer but she took two big steps backward, bumping into the brick building behind us. “Phoebe, talk to me. Please talk to me. I know I always say the wrong thing, but I am begging you to just talk to me.”
“You wanna know why I talk to Dex?” She raised her chin, swallowing hard. “He’s real with me. He doesn’t bother trying to spare my feelings. He says what he means, all the time.”
“I’m real with you.”
“On this trip, yeah. You have been. Because you get to act like a normal twenty-six-year-old instead of being cooped up in that stupid apartment with me.”
I rubbed my burning eyes. “What’s wrong with the apartment?”
“Nothing! Oh my god!” Tears streamed down her face. “Why can’t you just admit that I ruined your life?”
I recoiled, feeling like she’d ripped my heart out of my chest and thrown it across the street. “What?”
“I’m sick of you pretending I didn’t. Pretending everything is fine.” She gulped in a breath and wiped at her eyes. “Shawn left because of me. You were gonna get married. You were happy. And then suddenly you had to take me in and he left.”
“Bee—”
“Don’t, okay? I need you to stop being, like, ‘No, it’s okay!
Everything’s okay!’ Because it’s not. It hasn’t been since Dad died.
Since that lady asked if you would take custody of me or if I’d go to Aunt Cindy’s and you didn’t even hesitate.
You didn’t think about what it would do to your life.
Sometimes I wish you’d just give up and send me to Aunt Cindy so we could at least be us again.
Now, all I do is make everything harder and worse. Just hate me out loud.”
“Phoebe, no.” I moved forward, taking her face in my hands so she couldn’t break eye contact. My vision swam, but she looked up at me with something like hope sparking there. “You are the only reason I’m still standing. You are my reason to wake up in the morning.”
“But Shawn—”
“Fuck Shawn.”
“You were going to marry him!”
“And it would’ve been the biggest mistake of my life. Don’t think about him. He’s not worth it.”
“Okay, yeah, he sucks,” she agreed, voice trembling. I wiped her tears with my thumbs. “But I still ruined your life.”
“Nope.”
“You’re too young to be stuck with me! You should be out partying!”
“I don’t want to party. Sounds like a nightmare.”
“I’m the nightmare. I’ve treated you like shit for a year.”
“So?”
She blinked up at me, her expression blank. “What do you mean, ‘So’?”
“You think I shouldn’t love you because you treat me like shit sometimes?
I shouldn’t want you around?” I tilted my head, gazing at my sister, filled with so much frustration, so much sadness, so much love.
I should’ve told her every single day how much she meant to me.
I would from here on out. I was still learning how to do this, would probably never fully get the hang of being Phoebe’s guardian.
But I was her sister, always. “Phoebe, you are the most important person in my life. I love you so much. So much. No matter what.”
She sniffled, more tears falling. “But it shouldn’t be like this.”
“I know. It shouldn’t. But it is.”
She squeezed her eyes shut. “I’m sorry I’m such a bitch.”
I moved in, hugging her so tightly, I probably cut off her circulation. She held me just as hard. “You’re fourteen and your life kinda sucks right now,” I said, planting a kiss on her head. “It’s justified.”
She crumbled completely, sobbing into my T-shirt. “I miss him so much,” she cried. I let my cheek rest on the crown of her head, running my hand up and down her back like our dad used to do when we were sad.
“I know. I do, too.”
“I’m so sorry, Vi.”
“I’m sorry, too, Bee. I’m so, so sorry.” I kissed her head again, squeezing her tighter. “We’re always us. I know things got messed up for a while, but we’re still us, I promise.”
She nodded and I felt her shoulders relax as she melted into me, as if for the first time in a year, I’d finally managed to take some of the weight she’d been carrying.
We stayed for a few more minutes before Phoebe playfully shoved me and said we’d embarrassed ourselves enough.
On the walk to the motel, we stopped in Mama Sheridan’s and she told us the Italian bakery was on a different Main Street and people made the same mistake all the time—an annoying end to the mission, but Phoebe seemed content with the box of baked goods Mama Sheridan sent us away with for free because she could tell we’d been crying.
Over the course of the trip, I’d watched my sister’s growth in real time, but as she bounced down the sidewalk—pieces of pink hair spilling out of her nubby ponytail, her face clear and open and calm—I knew a corner had finally been turned.