“I know he’s your best friend.”
Jamie looks like maybe he wants to tell me something. But in the end he just shakes his head again and steps away. I know he wants to climb up to his old room, maybe take a shower, and crawl into bed. Or maybe he intends to stand guard all night, a sentinel against whatever ghosts might try to slip beneath my door.
“When are you going back?” I ask, suddenly not wanting him to leave.
He takes a couple of steps. His hand rests on the railing.
“Jamie,” I call out, “when are you going back to West Point?”
He doesn’t look at me. He just says, “I think maybe I should stay.”
I wonder what that would be like, having him always here to fight my battles. I would hate it. And I would love it. But that’s not how this story is supposed to go.
“You can’t stay, Jamie.”
“Yeah.” He spins on me. “Well, right now I can’t leave.”
“I’m okay,” I tell him, easing forward. “Don’t give up West Point because of me. Because I am okay.”
“Are you? Are you really, Gracie? Because my room is next door to yours, you know. When you wake up screaming in the middle of the night, I’m the one who hears you.”
I don’t talk about the nightmares. Not with Noah or Megan or Rosie. Not even with my psychiatrist, Dr. Rainier. It’s not that I can’t remember them once I wake up. It’s that they are always there, like a movie playing in the background of my mind. Sometimes, though … sometimes I can’t turn the volume down.
“They aren’t that bad,” I tell my brother. And the amazing thing is that it’s mostly true.
He reaches out for me again, but I wince involuntarily and Jamie stops. I am the wild thing he doesn’t want to frighten.
“I don’t blame you, Gracie. You know that, don’t you? I don’t blame you for what happened to Mom.” Jamie stalks toward me slowly. One heavy step and then another. They punctuate his words. “I. Don’t. Blame. You.”
His forgiveness is supposed to release me. I know I’m supposed to slump to the floor and cry. I should be able to get better now, but Jamie doesn’t know that my tears dried up ages ago.
So I just look at him.
“Then you’re the only one.”
He doesn’t follow me up the stairs. He doesn’t say another word. And I’m glad of it because I don’t know if I could take it, not his words and not his touch. I don’t want him to see me sway, unsteady on my feet as I walk down the hall.
I don’t want him to notice how hard it is for me to open my bedroom door or how I collapse against it once it’s closed.
But, most of all, I don’t want my brother to see the dark stains that have spread across my black tank top. When I pull off my cardigan, I wince. When I try to stretch my arms over my head and peel off my shirt, I scream. But the water is already running in the shower, pounding against the tile and filling the bathroom with steam. I am alone as I look at the too-thin girl who is reflected in the mirror. Her hair is tangled and her eyes are sad, and her right side is covered in blood.
I try to touch the slice that pierces my skin, but the pain is too much. I can’t pass out. Not now. I can’t ask for help.
But, most of all, Jamie can’t see this — know this. He already feels too guilty about Spence, and it’s not like anybody needs another reason to worry about me, so I won’t give them one. I’d rather die first.
I look at the bloodstained girl who is disappearing into the steam.
I’d rather die.
I sleep later than I should. It’s for the best, though. Easier to avoid Jamie that way. And Ms. Chancellor. But not Grandpa. I never have to worry about Grandpa.
Or so I think.
I’m halfway down the stairs when I hear voices in the foyer. There are a half dozen men and women being ushered into the formal living room on the other side of the black-and-white-checkered floor. It’s the room where Grandpa hosts his standing poker game, but no one in the foyer has come to play, I can tell.
They wear their best suits and their most serious expressions as Grandpa shakes their hands and welcomes them inside. But it’s the final man in the line who makes my breath catch.
Alexei’s father is taller than his son, broader. More stoic, which I never really thought was possible. For a moment, he and Grandpa stare at each other. Then, slowly, Grandpa extends his hand, and Alexei’s father takes it. It looks like something knights might have done five hundred years ago, right before they battled to the death.
There are no cameras in the foyer, no press. I have no idea how they got the Russians into the embassy without causing the mob outside to go wild. Maybe they crawled over the fence? Wouldn’t be the first time, I think. It’s a shame I wasn’t there to offer pointers.