Now the floor is really doing some crazy things. “But...but you hated me. You wouldn’t even talk to me anymore. You said this family would be better off without me.”
I wince at the memory. She said even worse things than that—right before she stopped talking to me at all.
“You just got so different,” she explains between sobs, “and you were always fighting with mom, and it was scary. I—I—I thought if I was mean to you, you’d go back to being your old self, but you d—didn’t, and then you methim, and you were never around. I saw him leaving you that letter, and then I read all those things about you guys going far away together and him lo—loving you, and I didn’t want to lose you, Paige! I didn’t want to be alone.”
“Isabella.” I take a step back, and my calves collide with the couch. I pause to steady myself. “Iz, you were never going to be alone. I would have been there for you whenever you needed it. All you had to do was ask.”
And it hits me then, so hard I actually drop into a seat on the couch like I’ve been knocked down.
That’s all I have to do too.
All I have to do is ask.
That’s all anyonecando. We all come up with these elaborate measures to protect the most vulnerable parts of who we are. We all wear armour to cover it up, but in the end, that’s all we have to offer to each other.
That’s what my mom does when she takes the things men use to hurt her and turns them into weapons. That’s what she knows, and despite any mistakes she made along the way, that’s what she tried to teach me: to protect myself.
That’s what my sister was doing when she took the letter. That’s even what my dad does when he chooses snacks or walks in the park over difficult conversations.
We all build walls, create realities, and live by codes based on a version of the truth that’s been distorted by fear and pain.
But we don’t have to.
And I’m not going to anymore.
My family stares down at me, probably wondering if I’m entering some kind of stress-induced coma, but I just sit there and take it in.
“Paige?” Isabella crouches down in front of me, whispering and hovering her hand over my knee like she’s scared to touch me. “Paige, please say something.”
There’s so much to say. All of us have so much we need to say and hear, but I start with the first thing.
“It’s okay.” I lean forward and wrap my arms around my sister. “It’s all going to be okay.”
* * *
Isabella pullsinto the train station’s parking lot and turns off the engine. Her Mitsubishi is a new enough model to have a push-start, and the inside still has that fresh-from-the-dealer smell. The scent is joined by the sweet steam coming off our Starbucks drinks.
I stopped for Starbucks.
With my sister.
Being in a car with her is so surreal I’m holding back from literally pinching myself, but I can’t stop grinning. There’s this light, bubbling feeling filling my body that asserts this is real, this is happening, this is amazing.
I didn’t know how this trip home was going to go, but I did not expect it to make megiddy.
I turn to face Isabella and find her smiling too.
“Your, um, your hair looks really nice.”
She glances at the highlighted layers resting on my shoulders, and I start twisting a lock around my finger.
“Thanks. My friend dyed it. She’s actually one of the friends waiting for me now.”
“Oh, right, right. You have friends waiting.” She looks at the steering wheel and shifts in her seat. “Well, it was good to, um, see you. Really good.”
I don’t know if things will ever be ‘really good’ at home, but once I found out it was Isabella who switched the letters, being there did get easier. My mom may have done a lot of things wrong, but now that I know she didn’t dothat, it’s easier to see how she was always trying to help me in her own weird, misguided way. It doesn’t make everything all right, but it does make me think we have a shot at some kind of future.
Just like Isabella and I. She offered to drive me to the station after my dad insisted we stay for bruschetta. We haven’t said much, but we haven’t needed to. I’ve got my sister back. The bond between us is fragile, a patched-up thing that’s going to need way more splints and slings than I did, but it’s still there. I can feel it in every measured breath I take as we sit here in the car.
