“And then Dad stopped the car and told me to drive.”
I still remember the crisp, cold air and the scent of evergreens when Dad and I swapped places in the car. I was fifteen at the time, so it wasn’t technically legal, but the road probably wasn’t technically legal either, and no one was around. Just us and the mountains and the trees. Mom had been nervous, but I was excited—my first time behind the steering wheel. But as soon as I got in the driver’s seat, I sort of freaked out. Not on the outside, of course, but my brain was screaming in panic.
“It was so scary,” I mused. “I mean, the mountain’s edge on one side and trees on the other. The whole time, I kept thinking, ‘If I go just a little bit to the left or the right, I’ll crash the car and kill us all. I am going to kill my whole family.’”
Bo snorts. “You were going, like, two miles an hour.”
“I was not!”
“You were. I could have walked faster.”
“Whatever. And Dad was yelling—”
“He was telling you to speed up—”
“And Mom was telling me to use the brake—”
“Because she’s a scaredy-cat—”
“And I was swerving all over the road—”
“Again, you were barely moving at all—”
“And do you remember what you said?”
I want him to know that this moment was really important to me. I remember it so vividly. I had been leaning forward, half my body over the steering wheel, trying to look as closely at the road as I could, squinting at the little bit of gravel just in front of the car. “You have to look further out,” Bo had said from the backseat. “You can’t look right in front of the car.” And then, I don’t know, I just got it. I understood. I needed to focus on the distance; I needed to see where I was going.
But Bo just shrugs now. He doesn’t remember.
“Anyway . . . thanks,” I say. I step out of his room, my foot landing on the gouge in the hardwood floor.
? ? ?
I take Bo’s plate back to the kitchen. On the stairs as I head back to my room, I get a text from Jenny. I keep my eyes on the screen as I pass Bo’s room again, not willing to make eye contact and conversation a second time.
What’s up? Jenny texts.
Nothing. I step into my room and close the door firmly. Bo’s here.
I’ve always been jealous, Jenny types, that you have a brother.
LOL, not this one.
No, you don’t understand. The words come fast and furious across my screen. You just don’t get how weird it is to be an only child. It would be so much better to have a brother or a sister or something. You have no idea how good you have it.
I turn off my phone, ignoring the buzzes as more texts arrive. Jenny is the one with no idea. Because the reality is? She may want a brother, but she doesn’t want Bo. She just doesn’t understand. I mean, I know she’s heard me complain about him, but she thinks it’s like the movies when two siblings fight and then eventually bond and become besties. But that sort of thing is just as fake as the idea that taking off your glasses and putting on some eyeliner is all it takes to change from the class freak to a hottie. The truth is, sometimes siblings have nothing in common but blood. Sometimes you just know that the concept of a BFF brother is not applicable to your family.
Sometimes you stay up late at night, thinking things that make you feel like a heartless monster, wishing for something different and then feeling sick with guilt because you know what the cost of “different” would be.
Jenny doesn’t want this life. There’s a difference between having no siblings and having a broken one.
? ? ?
An hour later, my door opens without warning, and I jump from my bed, expecting to shout at Mom. That’s our silent rule—I will be the daughter they need, but I get my privacy.
But it’s not Mom, it’s Bo. He glances at me, then quickly away, avoiding my eyes and sticking closely to the wall as he creeps around my furniture. He makes his way to my desk and unplugs my laptop, tucking it under his arm.
“You could have asked!” I shout after him.
But he walks out of the room as if he hasn’t even heard me.
CHAPTER 44
Sometimes they notice me, sometimes they don’t. I wonder if I’m fading in and out of existence, or if they are.
? ? ?
Sofía once told me that she found a red Moleskine notebook among her mother’s possessions after she died. The first twenty or so pages were filled with her chicken scratch, but the rest were blank.