"Iris isn't?—"
"She will be in five minutes," Zane says, cutting me off. I've had just about enough of men cutting me off in conversation today, thank you very much. But that's not Zane's fault; it's Van's. And I'm not thinking about Van or his letter. Not yet. Not until there's time to process. And there's no time now, because Zane is still talking. "Besides, you get strawberry when you're sad. Or when you're celebrating. And I'm not tryna be a dick, Josie, but you don't look like you're celebrating anything."
When we stop at a red light, I look at Zane, and reach over to nab a fry. "I'm spending quality time with my brother and he's interrogating me about my milkshake choice. What's not to celebrate?"
The light turns green and I fix my eyes back on the road.
"Good point," he says, and I can hear the smile in his voice.
We pick Iris up at Mrs. Fulton’s and head home. Zane gets dinner started while I help Iris change into her dance clothes. We eat and chat about our days. Zane shows no signs of ever having eaten food before, let alone an hour ago. I wonder if Van was like that when he—nope, I am not thinking about Van. Not yet, I remind myself.
I can't dwell on Van, or the past, or all of the revelations he laid on me this afternoon. Right now, I have to get Iris to dance, pick up the twins, and then shuttle everyone back here for the pre-bedtime madness of finding shoes and laying out clothes and getting showers and finishing homework.
It's chaos, but I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.
Three hours later, the garage door grinds, and I hear Levi call my name.
"Josie, where—Shit, are you ok?"
"I'm fine," I lie. Levi doesn't believe me, of course. I'm not in my usual spot on the recliner. All the lights are off and I'm sitting in the darkest corner of the room, in my dad's favorite chair. It's cherry wood with dark green upholstery. It was part of a fancy furniture set he and mom bought when we moved in here right before Zane was born. Mom hated it and replaced all the stuffy furniture with comfy, livable pieces, but Dad kept one of the old chairs. We never sit in it, partly because it was his, and definitely because it's like sitting on a cloth-covered slab of stone. There's nothing soothing about the chair itself, but once I got home and got everyone settled, I sat down in it and reread Van's letter. I remembered the look on his face as he sat on my bed and shared a secret he's kept from nearly everyone for years.
And that's when I started to cry. I knew the tears would come; they always do. But I held them at bay for hours and then let them fall in the uncomfortable comfort of this chair.
Because when I reread that letter, I was once again a girl with a broken heart. A girl who needed her dad.
I look up at my brother to see that he's still in panic mode, and that's not fair. "No, I'm not ok, but the kids are all fine. Everyone's asleep except Zane. And he's eaten dinner four times tonight, so he should be good for a while." Levi's scooted an ottoman close and he's sitting right in front of me, a box of Kleenex in his hands.
"Can I make you some tea?" he offers, then smiles when I lift my cup. "Is that Earl Grey?"
"Of course," I say, even though he knows I hate the stuff. It was Mom's favorite. No one drinks it, but we keep it stocked anyway. And yeah, maybe that's a little weird, but if that's the craziest thing Levi and I do as stand-in parents, I think we're doing okay.
"Be right back," he says, setting the tissues on the side table and heading into the kitchen.
A few minutes later, he's returned with a steaming mug of tea for me and a cup of coffee for himself. I take my mug, breathe in the scent, and smile just a little. "Red hot cinnamon? You're breaking out the good stuff. I must be in pretty bad shape."
"You scared the shit of me, sitting in his chair in the dark, crying. Drink your candy-flavored hot water and tell me whose face I need to punch, Josephine. I haven't seen you this upset since you broke up with that dumbass hockey player a couple years ago."
I must make a noise or a face, because Levi swears.
"Holy shit, Josie. Are you back with the dumbass hockey player?"
"No," I say honestly. "Not really. Not at all, actually. I'm just tutoring him."
That doesn’t calm my brother down. "And he made you cry? Again. What's this kid's name? Vance?"
I take a sip of my tea. "It's Van. Well, Beckett Vandaele, technically, but everyone calls him Van and don't go getting ideas about hunting him down and bashing his face in. You’re not breaking your hand on my ex-boyfriend’s face, or you won’t play guitar for weeks and women on the internet will lose their minds."
Levi sighs. "Fine. Dickhead is safe only because social media might collapse if I stop singing sad love songs. Okay, it wouldn’t collapse, but those sappy lyrics pay the bills, so I’ll behave. Anyway...you never answered my question," he says, taking a sip of his coffee and a bite of chocolate chip cookie.
"Hey, you didn't tell me there were cookies," I say, snatching two.
Levi looks at me, appalled. "My sister's crying in the dark over a punk-ass boy. You're damn right I'm bringing cookies. Mrs. Fulton brought them over. Do you think she’d accept my proposal?"
I shake my head. "She’s already married. And she’s in her sixties."
"Wow, way to judge."
Levi manages to make me smile, despite my sullen mood. Then he hits me in the feels.
