“Alright, not yet then. Can I at least get an explanation for this? Who are we fighting?”
She laughed again, which turned into a whimper, a sniffle, and then more tears. Shaking her head, she just snuggled into my hand and whispered, “I missed you so much.”
* * *
I was starting to see why the girl never cried. It was impossible for her to process anything else when she did and impossible to get her to stop when she started.
Whenever I thought I was starting to make progress, sudden bursts of tears told me that talking about anything sensitive was out of the question. Anything about England, the shelter, boxing, the cat, or her family set her off. Literally nothing could get her mind off of crying. So instead, I’d spent the better part of an hour simply holding her. Stroking her hair and saying silly things whenever she would start to get worked up again. My only goal being to make her smile.
At some point she dozed off, and that’s when I untangled myself from her arms, kissing her head and breathing in the scent that seemed to be missing something, before I stepped out of the room.
I found my sister and her husband sitting together in the living room. Him leaning back with his ankle crossed over his knee and his chin resting on his fist. Her leaning in close to his ear as she held onto the arm of his chair. To anyone else he might’ve seemed rigid as he listened to his wife speaking quietly at his side, but to those of us who were used to him, we saw the way he was zeroed in on her. Listening intently and speaking in murmured tones back to her.
Tine’s eyes caught onto mine as I entered the room. I simply inclined my head in the direction of the French style doors behind the living room and sauntered out knowing they’d follow.
I felt the assessing gaze of the rest of our family, but I ignored it. Clay, of course, didn’t care about that. “Where’s your girlfriend?”
“Resting,” I said. Sliding a look in the direction of the Fernandez sisters I added, “And not taking visitors.”
Keeping my attitude in check, I tried not to tell her sister not to go anywhere fucking near her,like I wanted to. But I think I still said it with my eyes judging by the way she shrunk away from the door when I caught her going for it.
In the garden, I waited until the couple settled onto the little stone bench along the house before I asked. “What happened? She won’t tell me.”
They looked at each other with grim faces before looking at me with the same wary expression.
“What?” I asked. “She’s really upset. More upset than I’ve ever seen her. I just want to know what happened when I was…gone.”
Ox leaned back, kicking his legs out and extending them in front of himself as he crossed his arms. “Melissa signed her up for grad school without her permission.”
Oh.Oh, no.
“That was stupid,” I said thinking of how Ceci would react to that on a good day. It wasn’t much better than this. But today was a bad day. No wonder this was the result. I shook my head. “That can’t be it, though.”
Ox looked at me through the corner of his eye for a long second. And then he looked at his wife almost remorsefully. “No one knows yet. She wanted to keep it a secret, but Ceci owns the shelter now. She won’t admit it, but she’s really scared, and I think she’s battling some strange thought that there’s a competition between all of us. And she thinks she’s losing. She loves the shelter, but she doesn’t think it's good enough for us to love it for her. That along with Lis’s meddling and…other thingsmay have been too much for her tonight.”
“She—” I started, but my sister picked it up for me, springing from her seat and looking straight down on her husband.
“What!”
Ox winced.
“Why didn’t you tell me, Oaxaca?” she gasped.
“Lu, sweetheart, come here,” he said. She did, sitting. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, but she wanted it to be a surprise. She was going to announce it at her fundraiser.”
“Oh,” she said, her shoulders slumping. He ran a hand down her long braid and patted her back. “But she must be so scared doing it all on her own.”
“She’s had me,” he said, but his eyes slid over to me. I went quiet, feeling sick. I picked the absolute worst time to leave. And he was letting me know it. I didn’t blame him. I would do the same for my sister. “But I get the feeling she wanted someone else by her side instead.”
“Yeah,” I nodded, beginning to pace. “I was supposed to help her, I just...we just—something happened.”
Ox held up his hand. “I don’t need details.”
I looked at him, and for the first time I realized his complete and utter calm over the situation. Relative to the rest of our family, he was the calmest. I narrowed my eyes. “Was it your idea to call me?”
“Yes.”
“How did you know?”
