“Except what?”
“Except to tell you that I love you,” she says sweetly.
I’m suspicious. “You love me.”
“Yes,” she chirps. “And I think you’re the best brother in this whole world. Even though you broke my best friend’s heart.”
Despite everything, my chest warms, but I do have to ask, “What do you want?”
“Nothing.” She’s outraged. “I just… I know how much you hate seeing Dad and now you’re back there. So I don’t wanna fight with you.”
I swallow.
The only good thing about the past two years is that I was in New York, close to Pest. So if she wanted me, I could go to her immediately. I could be there for her.
But now I’m here and it fucking sucks.
“I’m fine,” I tell her.
“You always say that. But I know. I know you hate Dad.”
“As I said, Pest, I’m fine. You don’t have to worry about me,” I say because she doesn’t have to.
She’s my little sister. I’m supposed to take care of her, not the other way around.
“But I do,” she replies. “You’re my brother. Actually, you’re not only my brother, you’re my everything. You’re my person, Reed. And you’ve been there for me like no one else has. Not Mom, who doesn’t really have the energy for anything other than Dad. And definitely not Dad and —”
“That’s because he’s an asshole.”
I don’t really care how he treats me. How he uses me or manipulates me or fucks with me. How he wants to control me. I don’t even care about the fact that my mother doesn’t have the time or energy for me.
I don’t need their time or love or affection or whatever the fuck kids get from their parents.
But Pest is sensitive. She needs them. It hurts her that Mom doesn’t care about her and that Dad has no use for her. All she’s really got is me.
The guy who knows nothing about love or how to be sensitive and shit.
But I made a promise when we were kids. When she’d come to me, crying and upset, that Mom wouldn’t play with her or that Dad wouldn’t see her science project, that I’d be there for her.
I’ll protect her, and that’s one promise I intend to keep.
“Yes, he is,” she says, breaking into my thoughts. “But I don’t need him. Because you take care of me. You’re my hero.”
“I am, huh?”
“Absolutely.”
“Well, then you should listen to me and stop calling me in the middle of the night for no fucking reason.”
She growls. “You’re an asshole, you know that?”
I chuckle. “Go to sleep, Pest.”
“Okay, fine, I will, but first you have to promise me something.”
“What?”
“You’ll say sorry to her. When you see her.”
Pain in my chest flares up again and I tell her, “I’m not seeing her.”
“You are,” she tells me. “Because I’m going to tell you exactly where she’s going to be tomorrow.”
“I don’t want to know.”
She ignores me. “And you’re going to apologize to her for being such a dick tonight. Promise me. And you’re going to apologize to her for what happened two years ago. I know you want to.”
I grit my teeth. “I don’t.”
“You do too,” she protests. “Because that’s why you spent the better part of last two years drunk and oblivious. So much so that you worried me.”
I did – for a little while there – and I will never forgive myself for that.
As I said, she’s my little sister. I’m supposed to take care of her and not the other way around.
Even so, I tighten my muscles. I absolutely refuse to give in to her, to my sister’s demands. It’s exactly what she does when she wants me to do something for her.
“Reed? Promise me,” she prods.
I clench my eyes shut. “Fine.”
Looks like I’m seeing her again tomorrow.
Even though I made another promise to myself that I never would.
It’s Saturday.
Meaning, today we get to go out. Legally, with permission, without having to sneak out.
Well, only me and Wyn.
Poe can’t go because her privileges were recently revoked by one Mrs. Miller, her guidance counselor. And Salem can’t go either because she’s new and she needs a certain amount of good girl points before she can earn the privilege for a day outing.
Their plan is to spend their precious free but still imprisoned time at the library because we have a big trigonometry assignment, which I’ve already done. I’ve been telling them to do it for days now but they haven’t listened. So now they’ll suffer.
Our day passes are good for six hours or up to five o’clock in the evening, whichever comes first.
And I don’t want to waste even a single second of that on the wrong side of the iron gates. So Wyn and me are off as soon as we can, catching the same bus that I do Thursday nights. Although this time of day, it’s full of people, most of them St. Mary’s girls.
Our first stop is what used to be my most favorite place in the world. These days I don’t like going there but I do anyway because it’s important: Buttery Blossoms.
“You sure you don’t want it?” Wyn asks, referring to the cupcake she’s currently eating, scooping out the silky chocolate frosting with her little plastic spoon and offering it to me.
Of course I want it.
It’s a cupcake, for God’s sake. And a Peanut Butter Blossom at that.
But I can’t have it.
And it’s not because I’m a ballerina who needs to follow a strict diet.
Or at least, it’s not only because of that.
It’s also because I’m a stupid girl who fell for a villain.
So I don’t get to have any; it’s my punishment.
I shake my head, digging into my stupid fruit cup. “Nope.”
Wyn frowns and puts it in her mouth, licking the spoon. “Are you sure? Because this is very good.”
I hate her.
“I know.” I narrow my eyes at her. “I work here over the summer, remember?”
I do.
Again, because I’m a stupid, brokenhearted girl who needs to remember.
Who needs to remember all the ways she was stupid in the past so she doesn’t fall stupid again.
Wyn takes another bite of her frosting. “Yeah, I don’t know how you can work here and still not eat this. This is so good, Callie.”
If she says it one more time, one more, I won’t be responsible for what I do.
As it is, it’s so hard to sit here and watch her eat my favorite thing in the world and not have any myself.
As hard as it is to see new knitting patterns in those online magazines and on Pinterest and not getting my knitting needles out and getting down to business.