Yoana…
I hadn’t seen her in over a year. What would it look like having me show up after all this time without a word? What would she say? Why would she give me comfort after all this time, after I’d gone MIA? All she received from me were text messages here and there telling her I was okay even though I wasn’t. She owed me nothing but still kept giving me everything. She’d write me long messages telling me about her life, keeping me up to date on any and everything. All I could do was send her a few emojis every now and again because while her life was moving forward, mine was standing still.
The last message she’d sent was about her honeymoon, which she was finally about to take after two years of marriage. The one before that was requesting that I come to visit. Before that? She left a long voice message about how she and Nathan flipped a house and were about to put it on the market. Since the two of them had gotten married, they’d both been so into the idea of flipping houses. The fact that they were able to work together and still be so happy reminded me so much of our parents. Mama and Daddy had been the same exact way.
Penn and me? We couldn’t have been more opposite. When I told him I wanted to be an author, he laughed at me, telling me I didn’t have the right education to do so. When I received my first book deal, he said it was luck. When my royalty checks came in, he told me not to spend them because more probably wouldn’t come.
Penn walked to his office and came back with a package of paperwork. “I was going to give these to you before the accident, but I held off. Just sign on the dotted line and leave them in the front hall when you go.”
Then he exited the room, leaving me sitting there with my too emotional self as he placed a nail in the coffin of our marriage. Divorce papers.
I signed them all as my chest ached.
I packed my things into three suitcases, taking only the important things, only the items that meant the world to me. Then I called myself a taxi and began the forty-five-minute ride to see a sister who didn’t have a clue I’d be showing up on her front porch to beg her to let me in.
After the driver dropped me off at her home in the town of Rival, Kentucky, I dragged my suitcases to the front porch.
A sigh of relief washed through me when I saw their car parked in the driveway.
I hurried and began knocking on the door. It was past ten at night, and there was a good chance Yoana was already sleeping. She’d never been a night owl, always an early riser.
“Who is that?” a deep voice questioned—Nathan’s, of course.
I spoke up a little. “Yoana, it’s me,” I choked out, sobs sitting heavily in my throat. “It’s Kennedy. I, well, I need…” I swallowed down the fear in my chest and shut my eyes. “I need you.”
The door flew open and there she was, standing there in her pajamas, looking at me with the most concerned stare ever.
My older sister looked like a goddess even now when she’d been awakened in the middle of the night. Gosh, I needed her. I needed her so, so much it made my stomach physically ache to see her eyes staring back at me…the eyes that looked so much like Mama’s.
“Are you okay?” she asked, and those three words cracked the shell of my hurts wide open. The sincerity in her voice hurt me more than I could say—the care, the gentleness, the love. I’d spent the past year lying to my sister about my well-being, out of stupidity and struggling with internal demons, and still, without a moment of hesitation, she was asking me if I was okay.
My lips parted, but no words came out. Tears began flooding my eyes, and I covered my face as I sobbed uncontrollably into the palms of my hands. “I’m sorry, Yoana,” I cried, shaking my head in embarrassment and pain. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”
She didn’t seem to need my apologies. She didn’t hammer me with questions about my situation. She didn’t scold me for pushing her away. Instead, she stepped forward, wrapped her arms around me, and held me so tightly in her grip.
“You’re okay, Kennedy. It’s okay. I got you. I got you.”
She held on tight. For the first time in the past year, I begun to breathe again, and my sister didn’t let me go.
As she held me, she asked me a very, very important question—probably the most important one I’d heard in a very long time. “Wine?”
“Yes.” I laughed, and I was taken aback by how genuine it sounded. “Wine.”
2
Kennedy
New beginnings should come with a warning label.
Warning: fresh starts won’t stop old memories from flooding your brain, resulting in panic attacks, social discomfort, and waves of every emotion possible stemming from depression, crashing into gratitude, and crackling into sparks of anger. No feelings are left behind.
It had been three days of me sleeping in my sister’s guest room, and Penn hadn’t reached out to me once. I tried my best not to reveal the confusing thoughts playing through my mind. I didn’t want my heaviness to weigh too heavily on my sister and Nathan—they didn’t deserve that. They deserved the me who was only thankful, not the sad girl I’d been for the past year. That was the problem with Penn—he saw my sadness and proved that side of me wasn’t worth loving. So I was working harder and harder not to let that side of me slip out. I didn’t want to push people away with my grief anymore.
I wanted people to stay.
Fake it till you make it, Kennedy.
It’s a proven fact that if you smile more, people will think you are happy. That’s basic science. I’d been smiling so much for the past few days since I’d arrived at Yoana’s that my cheeks were sore. Sometimes, I’d excuse myself to the bathroom just to let the smile fade for a moment before I pasted it back on my lips.
I hadn’t been called out on my fake smiles so far, which meant those smiles deserved an Oscar.
“Okay, don’t peek!” Yoana warned as she guided me down the streets of a small town called Havenbarrow. The town was only fifteen minutes from her home, and she said it was the cutest small town ever. For the past few days, all she talked about was the cuteness of the small town.
I couldn’t have peeked even if I wanted to thanks to the bandana covering my eyes. We’d been walking for a while, me stumbling every few minutes while Yoana tried her best to keep me from dying.
“Is the blindfold really needed?” I asked, a bit confused by all my sister’s antics while guiding me. The moment we parked her car in town, Yoana ordered me to close my eyes. Then, she took me on an adventure.
“Yes! Now hush and keep going. We’re almost there. Wait! Stop! Car!” she screeched, yanking me backward.
“What the hell!” I hollered, causing Yoana to burst out laughing.
“Just kidding. We’re nowhere near the street. I just thought it would be funny.”
“Oh, how I’ve missed your sense of humor.” My tone was joking, but I really had missed her sense of humor. I’d missed pretty much everything about being around my sister, and since I’d come to her for help, she’d been nothing but a saint to me.
“Only one more left turn,” she told me with her hands on my shoulders—then she whipped me to the right. “I meant right, right! Okay, a few steps forward…two steps back.”