All of this should be taken into consideration, and I should be thinking it through logically, but I abandoned logic back in the ballroom. My pulse begins to throb in my ears. “Yes.” Definitely. “Yes, I’m playing the card now.”
He lets go of my arm and glances down to where my fingers are still clutching his shirt. “I didn’t see you. Do you understand? You slipped out the entrance and we never talked. I’m not taking heat from Gavin for this, twin amnesty or not.”
“Not taking heat for what?” Gavin’s deep voice calls from down the hallway. My hope disintegrates and falls to the floor. Crap. I’m never getting out of here.
I force myself to release Ethan and fake the smile on my face even though my heart thuds against my rib cage. My brothers are used to my disposition, what Ethan annoyingly refers to as sunshine and rainbows. I’m so going to be sunshine and rainbows if it kills me. “Hi, Gavin. I saw you dancing with Jeannie Riley. She’s nice.”
Gavin’s the oldest of my parents’ brood of five children. We’re a close family, even though a huge age gap extends between the siblings. Gavin was eight and Jack was seven when Ethan and I were born. Jack stands beside Gavin and they both fold their arms over their chests when they see me and Ethan. Guess this time I didn’t feign sunshine and rainbows well enough.
“Mom’s looking for you,” says Jack. “It’s time for your speech.” Jack’s quiet and that may be his longest monologue for the night. Which makes it rough for me to say no to him.
“Come on, Rach,” Gavin says. “You’re the one that approached Mom and Dad about speaking at this event. Not the other way around. You need to get over this fear of being in the spotlight. It’s in your head. It was one thing when you were seven, but it’s gotten old. You’re a junior in high school, for God’s sake.”
Gavin’s right. I offered to speak at the leukemia event. A couple of weeks ago, I stumbled upon Mom crying over a picture she’d found of her oldest daughter, Colleen, and I hated the pain in her eyes. I had overheard Mom mention a few days before to a friend that she’d always dreamed of me talking on Colleen’s behalf. When her friend suggested Mom should ask me to participate at this fundraiser, Mom declined, telling her she’d never put me in a situation that made me uncomfortable.
Mom’s been in hell for over twenty-one years and the sole reason for my birth was to make her feel better. She still cries, so I guess that means I haven’t done a very good job.
My stomach cramps and my hands begin to sweat. It’s coming—the attack. I try to remember what the therapist in middle school said about breathing, but I can’t breathe when my lungs won’t expand.
“I changed my mind,” I whisper. “I can’t do the speech.” I need to get out of here fast or everyone will know that I’ve been lying. They’ll know I still have the attacks.
“Are you really going to let us down?” asks Gavin.
The squeak of the back door announces the arrival of my last brother. In one easy stride, West lopes into our private circle. The two of us favor Mom with our blond hair and eyes so blue they almost appear purple. Along with his white tux shirt and undone bow tie, West wears a baseball cap backward. “Not sure what’s going on, but you should leave my little sister alone.”
“Get that hat off, West,” says Gavin. “Mom told you she didn’t want to see a thing on your head until tomorrow morning.”
Gavin leads us. He always has. But just because the four of us have always followed doesn’t mean we think Gavin’s awesome. In fact, Ethan, West and I find Gavin annoying. Jack is Gavin’s best friend.
West pulls the cap off his head and flashes the smile that says he’s playing the field…again. “There was a girl and she likes hats.”
I roll my eyes as my brothers chuckle. There’s always a girl. Less than a year older than me and Ethan, West is our high school’s version of the guys from an MTV reality series that sleep with a new girl each night. And lucky us, Ethan and I have front row seats to watch West’s show. “You’re a pig.”
West waggles his eyebrows at me. “Oink.”
Gavin points at West. “No hat.” West shoves it in the back pocket of his dress pants.
Then Gavin turns on Ethan. “She’s not getting out of this, so stop trying to snatch her keys.”
My head jerks to the small matching purse attached to my wrist and I catch Ethan dropping his hand, my keys in his fist. Gavin motions with his fingers for Ethan to relinquish them. With a huff, Ethan tosses to my oldest brother my only chance at escape.