For some reason, Ava looked pleased.
I, on the other hand, felt like I’d taken a punch to the stomach.
“So, you just didn’t allow yourself to do anything about it. Is that right?” she asked, settling her elbow on the back of the couch and resting her head in her hands.
I stared at her, ready to change the subject.
Ava shook her head. “Never mind. I know you well enough to know that’s exactly what you did.”
My back molars ground together. “We don’t have to talk about this now.”
Ava cocked her head to the right. “Oh, I think we do. Because I’m willing to bet the reason you didn’t write her back had to do with me.”
The air in my lungs decided to get the hell out of Dodge. “Ava.” She was the only family I had left, and I had failed her in so many ways.
“Tell me what happened.” Her voice was steady, almost soothing. “Why didn’t you write her?”
As soon as I’d seen Elise’s name on the return address, I’d torn the envelope open with shaking hands. We’d been in New Orleans for a year and a half, but we’d only been at the Crystalline apartment for a few weeks. The yellow forwarding label attested to the fact that Elise had sent the letter to our old address, and it had taken an extra week to find us.
I remembered the way I’d sunk to the floor, the breath sucked from my lungs at the sight of a whole page of her lovely, florid script. Deafening, caustic music had blared from Ava’s room, but everything had hushed under the rushing in my ears.
Reading her words had felt like warm hands running over my bare skin.
I must have read the letter a dozen times before I got to my feet and carried it down the hall to tell Ava. I had my hand on her door knob and was already turning it when I heard voices. Laughter. Not Ava’s.
“Cole.” Ava’s voice now firmed with impatience. “Tell me.”
Two girls had sat on the floor at the foot of her bed. Watching. Or waiting their turn. I never knew which. I hadn’t known them. But I’d recognized the guy on the bed with Ava. Talon. As if that were really a name. She’d brought him around two or three times before.
I’d walked in just in time to see him slipping the belt he’d used as a tourniquet off Ava’s arm. He’d already collapsed the plunger of the syringe that jutted out of my sister. She hadn’t seen me come in, of course. She just lay on her back, her pupils blown, staring blindly at the ceiling.
And I’d lost my fucking mind.
“Cole.”
I looked up at my sister. She might not have seen me then, but she was pinning me with her gaze now. And she wasn’t going to let up. I could see that as clearly as the ugly memory in my mind.
I cleared my throat. “Talon,” I said, hoping the name would be enough. Ava winced.
“What about him?” she asked, her voice just above a whisper now.
I sighed. So much for sparing her the details. “I got the letter just before I walked in on you,” I said, and then I had to clarify. “The first time, I mean.”
Because it hadn’t been the only time. Not by a long, long way.
Ava closed her eyes and nodded. I expected to see tears when she opened them, but I found courage and calm instead.
“So you did what you always do. You pushed your life aside to try to save m—”
“Ava, you’re my sister. Of course, I—”
“It’s too much responsibility.”
I swallowed against the obnoxious lump in my throat, forcing it down. “It’s never been too much for me,” I swore.
Ava reached out her left hand and gripped mine with surprising strength. She jerked her head from side to side. “No, I don’t mean you.” I flinched at her volume. “Knowing that you were always giving up things you wanted. For me. That was too much.”
My brows drew together, and my mouth worked uselessly for a moment. “What?”