She huffs. “Don’t be ridiculous, Gracie.”
But she doesn’t continue. I’ve never seen her this agitated, this at a loss for words. After the postgraduation lunch with Momma, Jane said she wanted to go for coffee in Incheon, just us. Which means me drinking coffee and her sipping caffeine-free soda from a straw she’s chewed into submission, because Jane on caffeine is a scary thing.
“Everything went wrong after Nathan died,” she whispers suddenly, and her voice sends a chill rippling down my back.
Jane catches my gaze and holds it with her hazel eyes. Eyes that look so much like Nathan’s, it’s like my brother staring back at me again.
I jerk my head away and stare out the window at the busy street with its sidewalks full of people. But it feels like my heart is cracking, little pieces of it chipping away. I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to talk about this. I don’t—
“Grace.” Jane reaches across the table and grabs my hand.
Tears pool in my eyes.
“Why did you move here?”
I clear my throat, giving myself time to get a better hold on the emotions twisting up my insides. “I guess I just … needed to get away.”
Her lips quiver. “Because of Nathan?”
I nod.
She sighs and lets go of my hand so she can sit back in her chair. “You’re being dumb.”
My eyes widen, and I’m momentarily shocked enough to forget the grief threatening to shatter me. “What?”
She shakes her head. “You’ve always taken things too hard. You think everything’s your fault. News flash—it’s not.”
“What are—” My voice falters. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying you need to stop blaming yourself for Nathan’s death, because it wasn’t your fault,” she says almost flippantly, like she’s telling me to stop whining about not getting the Christmas present I wanted. “I don’t know how you got it into your head that you were somehow responsible for Nathan, but that’s just insane.”
Jane levels me with a hard stare, and I realize I’ve never seen her this serious. There’s a new maturity to her that she’s never shown me before.
“You didn’t kill Nathan,” she says. “He killed himself. And if you had some responsibility in his death, then so do the rest of us. Because we’re a family, and we take care of each other. Obviously, we didn’t—” Her voice catches, and she has to start again. “We didn’t do a good job of taking care of him. But that’s on all of us, not just you.”
She swallows hard. Emotion builds in my own throat. She frowns, licks her lips. “It hurt my feelings when you left.” She crosses her arms, shifting in her seat. “I mean, I know why you did. I get it—you wanted to get away from everybody. But you left us all jacked up. Do you know what that did to Mom and Dad? They’d just lost Nathan, and then you left, too.” Her voice drops to little more than a murmur. “There were a few times I thought Mom was going to lose it. You have no idea.”
“Jane, I’m sorry—”
“No.” Her eyes harden. “Don’t be sorry. You have nothing to be sorry for. I just want you to understand. You think we all blame you for Nathan’s death, but that’s not true. You’re the one who blames yourself.”
“But at the funeral, Momma said—”
“We all said things we didn’t mean that day,” she interrupts. “We were grieving.”
I still am—grieving. But I can’t say that. I can’t tell her how much pain I’ve carried around with me for months. She doesn’t understand. She didn’t know Nathan the way I did. She was too young.
“He was my idol,” I whisper. “Why did he do it? I still don’t understand.”
She shrugs. “Who knows? He was messed up, Grace. Do you not remember the mean things he said about Mom when he was drunk, the way he and Dad fought all the time? He wasn’t a saint, you know.”
Anger sparks. “He was our brother!”
“And you’re my sister,” she challenges. “And I’m not letting you feel bad about yourself the rest of your life. I don’t care if you go to Vanderbilt or spend the rest of your life here, but whatever you choose, do it for you, not because you’re trying to get away from Nathan’s ghost.”
The tears escape my eyes now, trickle down my cheeks. I swipe at them, but more keep coming until my nose is running and my shoulders are shaking and I’m a wet, snotty mess in the middle of the café.
Jane clears her throat, her nose wrinkling. “You look disgusting right now.”
But her eyes are shiny, and I know what she doesn’t say—that when she says we’re a family, she means it; that she loves me and that she wants me to be happy.
I wipe my nose with a napkin, and we leave the restaurant. When we get out on the sidewalk, I throw my arms around Jane and pull her into a hug.
I squeeze her tight against me. “Thanks, little sis.”
She pats my back awkwardly, then when I keep holding on, tries to push me away. “Okay, okay, enough hugging!”
I let go with a laugh, and we make our way toward the hotel. Nothing has really changed since before our conversation—Nathan’s still dead, my mother is still impossible to get along with, and Dad still treats work like it’s more important than his family, which is probably the reason he didn’t come to graduation—but I don’t feel the same.
“What are you going to tell Mom?” Jane asks as we ride the elevator up to their floor.
“I don’t know yet. But I know I can’t go back to Tennessee.”
She stares hard at the floor. “Are you going to live with Sophie?”
“Maybe.” I punch her shoulder. “But there’s no way she’ll be nearly as cool a housemate as my little sister.”
Jane’s lips curl into a smile as the elevator doors slide open.
She pauses outside her room.
“I’m going to miss you,” she says. “Keep sending me letters, okay?”
My eyes sting with tears again. “Always.”