* * *
The creakof my bedroom door swinging inward makes my broken heart clench painfully. I don’t open my eyes to look; they are far too eager to see a particular broad-shouldered form stepping over the threshold. I cannot bear the disappointment of seeing whoever has come in his place.
Though, I suppose I’d better get used to it.
It will never be him at my door again.
Just thinking those words makes it hard to breathe. I keep hoping, as the hours tick by, as the day wanes on, that it will get easier. That with time, the ache inside my bones will lessen from this piercing pain to a manageable thrum. That I will be able to climb from this bed, find my feet, face the world.
But my hopes are as hollow as my dreams for a different sort of future. One that doesn’t end with me lying here alone while Carter starts a new life in another country, a thousand miles away.
It was idealistic of me to ever wish for a different sort of endgame. We were always bound to break. I know that now. I can see, with the benefit of hindsight, that the paths we are destined to walk have now so thoroughly diverged, there is no circumstance in which we ever find our way back to each other. Not in this lifetime.
He’s gone.
And my heart with him.
The weight of a warm body lands beside mine on the bed. I recognize her without opening my eyes, the strawberry scent of her shampoo a soothing source of familiarity.
Chloe.
Crawling across the mattress, she cocoons her limbs around mine, spooning me through the thick fabric of my duvet. Her arms tighten like a vise. As if she knows how much I need someone else to hold me together today.
“I’d ask how you’re doing, but seeing as it’s four o’clock in the afternoon and you’ve yet to leave your bed, I think I know the answer already.” Her voice is wry, but there’s a sadness buried between her words. I’m not the only one who’s lost someone, today. In fact, she probably has more right to fall apart than I do. She’s lost her brother.
I’ve lost…
I don’t have words for what Carter is to me.
Was to me.
Past tense, Emilia.
Get used to putting him there.
Part of your past.
I know Chloe misses him too, but I have no energy left to comfort her. It’s taking every ounce I possess to keep from caving in on myself, crumbling beneath the weight of my own emotional wreckage.
“Just twitch or something if you’re alive under there,” she teases in a murmur. “Please?”
With a deep sigh, I roll over so I’m facing her. She peels the blankets slowly back from my face and, when our eyes meet, I see my own sadness reflected back at me.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper.
“For what?”
“Being a mess.” I swallow hard. “And for…”
“Hiding your secret love affair with my older brother?”
I nod.
Her lips tug up in a half-smile. “I was pissed last night when I walked outside and saw you two together. But the truth is, I think I was mostly pissed neither of you told me — that I had to stumble upon it like some stranger.” Her lips flatten, the smile vanishing. “I confide all my secrets to you, Emilia. Even the things I’m ashamed of. The very worst parts of myself. It hurt to realize you don’t do the same. That you don’t trust me enough to share certain parts of your life with me.”
“Chloe, no. That’s not it.” I reach out from under the blankets and take her hand in mine. “I trust you. I trust you more than anyone. But this secret… it felt too big to share. Not because I thought you’d judge me. Because even admitting it out loud meant…”
“Acknowledging it was happening?”