“Grace?”
The stairs are in front of me. They’re right there with their tarnished handrail and paint-chipped wood. All I have to do is take them two at a time and our room is the second on the right. Safety.
“Grace.”
But I can’t take the steps two at a time. Her voice stops me, holds me, turns me around.
“What?” I try to say it forcefully, angrily, even meanly, but it comes out a cracked whisper.
Now, she’s right there. Right in front of me. She smells like Band-Aids and smoke.
“Grace.”
“Please stop saying my name.” I finally lift my eyes to hers, to that cut on her head, to her red-rimmed eyes haunted by another hospital hours away. The rain falls softly, tiny sparkling diamonds on our skin.
“Is Maggie okay?”
I blink at her. I didn’t expect that question. It seems like a simple one because, yes, my mother is okay. Bumps and bruises, that’s all. But I can’t say yes. I can’t answer it, because in that moment, with a thin mist of rain coming down on us, Eva’s eye makeup smudged and her hair a mess, I don’t know the answer.
“You promised me,” I say quietly.
She looks down, but not before I see a fresh wave of tears fill her eyes. “I know.”
“You promised me, Eva. And you . . . you got hurt.” And it’s my fault. Instinctively, my hand comes up and swipes away one tear from her cheek before I force my arm back to my side.
“I’m sorry,” she says again, stepping closer, but I step back. “She called and I told her I was at work, but she was so set on going to Ruby’s tonight.”
“She’s always so set on doing whatever’s in her head, Eva.”
“I know. Or maybe I don’t. I don’t know, but I could tell she was in a bad place, so I went with her. I was worried.”
“Why didn’t you call me?”
She presses her eyes closed. “Things were already so awful with you and her. I didn’t want to make it worse. You were so sad and angry. I was trying to help. I thought I was helping.”
“You promised me.” I say it again because it’s my only point, really. Her own reasons make a sort of sense, and I can’t argue with her. Don’t have the energy to. “You promised me and then we . . . we spent that night on Emmaline and barely two days later you broke that promise.”
“I wasn’t trying to. I was—?”
“I’m tired, Eva.” And I’m almost shocked by how much my voice sounds it. “I’m tired of broken promises. And this”—?I wave my hands between us—?“it’s just one more thing I have to worry about. And I can’t . . . I can’t be the person you need me to be anyway.”
“Don’t say that,” Eva says.
She tries to take my hand, but I wrench it back. I’m so sick of this. No one is safe with Maggie, and, by extension, no one is safe with me. Not even me. But this is my life. I’m used to it, stuck in it, for better or worse, and I’m sick of wishing for it to change. Sick of feeling happy only for all of it to go to crap. Even if I did leave for school, I’d never feel okay about it, never feel right.
Because it’s Maggie.
It’ll always be Maggie. Not because that’s what I want, but because it’s all I have. It’s all that’s mine, all there’s room for.
Maybe Mom’s right.
Maybe we have outgrown this town, our lives here. Or maybe we never fit in at all.
Just a home.
Just a girl.
“I have to go,” I say. I start to turn away, but she hooks her hand around my elbow and whirls me back around.
“Are you for real?” Eva asks, tears sparking her eyes again. But underneath that, there’s a flare of anger. And I know she’s finally seen it. Too much. Not enough. Whatever. She’s finally sick of it all too. “You’re actually mad at me?”
I just stare at her because I don’t know what I am.
“I really was trying to help,” Eva says, taking a step back. “Yeah, your mom’s a mess, Grace. But she’s still here. She’s alive and breathing, and you get to call her Mom every single day. But fine. Go tell yourself whatever you want about us, about who you are, about what you think is your fault.”
She wipes rain and tears from her eyes, her face all hard edges and determination. She looks at me, waiting for me to say something. Comfort her, yell at her, I don’t know. Just something. But I can only watch her. Watch us unravel.
Eva’s expression goes soft and slack, realization spilling over her face like a sunrise.
Love isn’t enough.
It never is.
If it were, Eva would still have her mom. I’d have a house I’ve lived in for years and a sober mother with a normal job whose eyes would light up every time her daughter sat down at the piano.
“Maybe you’re right,” Eva says. Her eyes are on mine, but they don’t see me. They look through me, like what she’s about to say has already been said. Because it has, at least in my head. “Maybe this isn’t a good idea, you and me. Maybe you really can’t love me the way I want you to. Maybe I can’t either.”
And then she turns away from me, her arms wrapped around her middle as she runs back toward the car, a curtain of rain cutting us off from each other. I watch her go, my sad little swan, while my lungs try to pull in enough air.
Then I push myself up the steps, two at a time. I think I hear Emmy call out to me. I think I hear Luca yell my name.
I know I hear someone choke on a sob.
I think that someone is me.
But I keep taking those stairs, two by two, until I can’t hear anything anymore.
The rain comes down in sheets as I pack. There’s not much. A lot of my stuff is still at Pete’s. I’m not sure what Mom’s planning to do about all that, but right now I can’t think about it. I can’t think about anything, about anyone; the only thing that distracts me is running through piano pieces in my head, and that only makes me think about what Mom said in the hospital.
After you graduate . . .
My finger pauses in mid-zip on my suitcase. She never really believed I’d go to New York. When my audition invitation letter came, it was still a far-off dream, too far away to be real for either one of us. I don’t know what she was thinking when she made those hostel reservations. Maybe it really was just a bribe to keep me from freaking out over moving to the lighthouse. Whatever it was, that excitement has long since fizzled out, replaced by a mourning girl and purple balloons and necklaces and a new start in Portland.
Because this is Maggie we’re talking about.