Babe?”
Stale beer fumes fill my nostrils as I stare up into the glassy eyes next to me. The weight of his arm around my shoulders is like a noose, making my chest tight and my breathing labored.
“All right there, Romeo. Mind if I steal my girl back?”
My best friend, Casey, sidles up to us and expertly maneuvers me out of his grasp. My drunken partner of choice for the evening mutters his disappointment.
“Thanks, Case.” I incline my head and rest it on top of hers; an easy feat, considering I’m five inches taller even without heels.
“Please… as if he stood a chance, anyway. You always go for the weird ones, Ro…” She trails off.
Ever since Gareth.
That’s what she’s thinking. I know it. Ever since Gareth, my childhood sweetheart, spectacularly dumped me days after I gave him my V-card, and my life turned to shit. I wanted to wait until we were married. Call me naïve or old-fashioned or whatever. But the old me used to believe in true love and soulmates.
The old me.
I snort and lose my balance, wobbling as the night’s cocktails swirl around in my stomach and cause my head to spin like I’m on a ride at Staten Island Fair.
Casey tightens her grip on my waist as we exit the club, and the night air of New York hits me like a slap in the face, making my stomach roll again.
A girl stands shivering, arguing with the bouncer about going back inside to find her purse to get a cab home. I don’t wait to hear his excuse about why she can’t go back in. I pull a twenty from my purse and press it into her hands.
“Always get home safe. That’s what my dad used to say,” I slur.
“Thanks.” She smiles as I bat her words away with a swipe of a drunken flailing hand.
“It’s nothing.”
I lean into Casey’s side as she pulls me away further down the sidewalk.
“You’re too nice, Ro.” She sighs as she scans the street.
“You and I both know that’s not true.” I clasp a hand over my mouth as I belch, and my neck burns.
Casey blows out a breath, probably too tired to argue with me. We’ve had this conversation before.
Many times.
“Looks like our ride home just found us.”
I follow her gaze to the blue sedan pulled up by the curb. Brett glares at me from the driver’s side. I lift one hand and wiggle my fingers in a wave, attempting to curl my lips into a semblance of a smile, instead of the grimace that has settled there.
“He shouldn’t be here,” I mutter.
He winds down the window and calls to us. Casey answers for me as a fresh wave hits me, forcing me to bend over at the waist and hurl the night’s liquid courage all over the sidewalk. She rubs my back with one hand, gathering back my hair with the other.
I groan and straighten up, wiping the back of my hand across my lips, and look over at Brett through bleary eyes.
“Hey, big brother.” I grimace.
He looks at Casey, then back at me, his mouth flattened into a grim line.
“Get her in the car, Case. It’s time Rose went home.”
I roll my eyes, which makes my head pound.
“Come on, Case,” I whisper. “Time I went back to serve my sentence.”
After dropping Casey off, and me drunkenly whispering—which was more like slurred shouting—about how I didn’t want her to leave me, and then trying to cling on to her as she exited the car, Brett drives me the rest of the way home in silence.
Stone-cold silence.
I glance at him twice, at his stupidly handsome face, all mad and unsmiling. And at his giant biceps as he steers the wheel and uses the wheel-mounted hand controls to accelerate and brake. Either he ignores me on purpose, or he’s too busy concentrating to notice me watching him.
I rest my face against the cool glass instead, staring out the window.
Please, God, if you’re listening… let tonight be the night aliens abduct me and take me far, far away, where I’m not the family fuck up anymore.
“Stay there.” Brett side-eyes me as he parks on the driveway and kills the engine.
“I can help,” I slur, grabbing the door handle clumsily on my second attempt and launching the door open, almost falling out onto the ground.
“Rose, I said wait,” Brett snaps as I open the back door and grab his folded-up wheelchair.
It gets wedged between the seats, and I yank at it, cursing under my breath.
I hate this thing. I hate it with a passion. But what I hate the most is that I’m the reason Brett needs it.
I pull hard, and he hisses as it comes free and flies out, knocking me on my ass and landing on top of me, cracking me on the cheekbone.
“The fuck, Sis!” he growls as tears sting my eyes and my cheek throbs. “I told you to wait. You okay?”
I lift my head and meet his heated gaze. His eyes soften as he looks at me spread out on my back. I push the chair off me and stand, straightening up as I swallow the lump in my throat.
I can’t bear to look into his eyes when I know what is there…
Pity.
Pity for the sad and pathetic mess his younger sister has become.
“What’s going on?” Mom says as she hurries from the front door and over to us in her slippers.
“I was—”
“She drank too much again.” Brett reaches for the wheelchair, grabbing it from where it’s landed by the driver’s door, and opens it up with one hand before sliding himself effortlessly into it using his strong arms.
Mom looks at me, her eyes glistening with unshed tears. “Rose… Why are you doing this to yourself?”
“I’m not doing anything, Mom.” I sway as I walk ahead of her and Brett and into the house. Only a single lamp is on in the hallway, and I stumble as I step through the door, momentarily losing my bearings in the dim light.
I grab on to the hall table, but misjudge the distance, and send a frame skittering onto the floor. The glass smashes into a thousand tiny, splintered pieces.
“Oh!” Mom sobs as she appears behind me and scoops the frame up.
She turns it, and nausea washes over me, taking with it the blood from my face as I stare at the photograph of the five of us.
Smiling.
Back when we all had something to smile about.
“I’m sorry, Mom,” I whisper, swallowing the dry lump in my throat.
She pats at her eyes, the earlier unshed tears losing the battle and dropping down her cheeks in silence.
“Go to bed, Rose. It’s late.”
She traces her finger over the photograph, lingering on Dad’s face, then turns and walks to the kitchen.
“Let me clean it up, let me…”
“Leave it.” Brett sighs behind me.
I say nothing, just nod.
Then I climb the stairs slowly, using the wall for support and go straight to my room, lying on the bed while the room spins around me.
“It’s got to be worth a try though, right?”
I stall, my hand hovering over the door handle as my older sister’s voice flows out from inside the kitchen.
“We have to do something, Mom.” Brett.
“I don’t know. It’s so far away.”
I squeeze my eyes shut as my mouth goes dry at the anguish in Mom’s voice.
“What do you think, Reed?”
I lean closer to the closed door. My soon-to-be brother-in-law is here as well. Which is only to be expected. Him and my older sister, Harley, have been joined at the hip ever since they started dating when he was running in the election for mayor of New York last year. A position he won with a record share of the votes.
I really am the only fuck up in the family.
“I think it could be good for her,” he says.
I roll my eyes. Always diplomatic. Maybe that is what years in politics does for you.
I take a deep breath and open the door. Four pairs of eyes fly to me.
“Busy discussing what a trainwreck I am?” I walk over to the refrigerator and grab a carton of orange juice. Fetching a glass from the cabinet, I pour it in and take a sip, sighing in relief as its cool sweetness eases the rough hoarseness that a night of too many cocktails has had on my voice.
“Don’t talk about yourself like that, Rose,” my sister says from her seat at the kitchen table. Her fiancé, Reed, lays a hand on her shoulder and squeezes. “We were just discussing how to help you.”
I snort as I drain the rest of my juice.
“Drowned me at birth?” I mutter.
Mom’s eyes plead with mine as I look into them.
“I’m sorry,” I breathe, my shoulders dropping. “I’m fine, honestly. I just had one too many last night, that’s all.”
“It’s every weekend.” Brett looks at me from under his brow from where he’s sitting between Mom and Harley.
“Not every—”
“And some nights in the week,” he finishes, pushing his head into his hands and running his fingers back through his hair. “We love you, Sis. We want you to stop blaming yourself.”
My throat burns again.
“How can I do that? When we all know it’s my fault we are even having this conversation.” I walk to the dishwasher and put the glass inside.
“There’s a new job that Harley’s friend has told her about,” Mom says suddenly.
I freeze with my back to them, my spine stiffening.
“We think it would be good for you,” she adds.
“I have a job.”
“You had a job,” Brett says.
I turn, crossing my arms over my chest.
He’s right. The accounting firm I work for made cutbacks recently. Of course I was the one who didn’t make it. Friday was my last day.
Damn. Why didn’t I lead with that? Say that last night was just me letting my hair down after losing my job? I could have explained the cocktails away easily. They’d have bought it.
I look back at their stony faces.
Or maybe not.
“Fine. Give me the details and I’ll look into it.” I turn my back on them all, unable to take any more of their grim, pitying looks.
I fetch out a knife, plate, some bread, and the peanut butter to make a sandwich. I unscrew the lid of the peanut butter and spread it over the bread.
“It’s in England,” Mom says.
The knife falls from my hand, clanging loudly against the plate.
“As in New England?” I turn to her.
“As in, the UK,” Brett says, staring at me as Mom watches me closely.
I look between the two and then to Harley, and finally Reed.
“You want me to go to England?” The room falls silent, the uncomfortableness thick and stifling as it weaves itself through the air.
“We think it will help you. A new place, fresh scenery, a break from here,” Mom suggests.
She doesn’t sound convinced herself, so why the hell should I be?
“You’ve already set this all up?” My mouth drops open as one guilty look between my sister and brother confirms it. “Fuck.”
“Rose!” Mom chides.
“You’re sending me away?” It makes perfect sense, though. I wouldn’t want me here either, after everything I’ve done.
“Of course not. We just want what’s best for you. We love you.” Mom’s voice reverts to its usual octave of helplessness tinged with heartbreak.
Maybe I should curse again. I would rather her be angry at me than feel her sadness radiating from her like a beacon in every word and look she gives me.
“You just need time, Rose. Time to find yourself again… to forgive yourself,” she whispers with sadness in her eyes.
Time… if it were that simple.
Brett remains silent.
Reed is standing behind Harley. He loves her more than anything. It’s in his eyes, and my heart squeezes that she has found that with someone. It reminds me of the way Dad used to look at Mom. And how she looked at him.
I take in the two empty chairs at the kitchen table. One is mine. The other…
The Jacobs family.
One short.
I would do anything to fill that seat again. But that’s impossible.
I would also do anything to see Mom smile again.
One question leaves my lips, “When do I leave?”
“I’m going to miss you so much.” Casey swipes at her eyes again as she pulls back from our hug.
“I’m going to miss you too. But it won’t be forever. Just until I find myself, or forgive myself, or whatever shit I’m supposed to be doing over there.”
When I get upset I get this burning, aching lump in my throat like a damn marble made of acid. But no tears. Never tears. I haven’t been able to cry since Brett got knocked down by a speeding driver. Not even when Dad—
“Well, do it fast.” Casey sniffs. “I need you here, Ro. It’s been you and me since we were five. From sandbox to casket, remember?”
A lopsided grin stretches across my lips as I pull her in for another hug.
“Yeah, I know. No one else has been there for me like you. You’re the bestest friend a girl could ask for.”
She clutches me tighter. “No, Ro. That’s you. You’re the bestest friend. I’m going to call and text you every day.”
“Okay.” The burning lump prevents me from saying much else.
I pull away and lift the carefully wrapped package from the top of my drawers, setting it down on my pillow and smoothing over the cloud paper with one hand. Then I rest the note atop.
I love how happy he was the day we took this. I’m sorry about the frame. I love you. —Rose.
“She’ll appreciate it,” Casey says, her eyes resting on the wrapped-up replacement frame. She went shopping with me this week to find one the right size for the one I broke.
If only everything that needs fixing could be done with a trip to the store.
She reaches over and grabs my hand. I squeeze my eyes shut until Mom calls up the stairs.
Time to go and find myself.
Whatever the fuck that means.
