“Something like that.” A few minutes later neither of us have finished with our meal, but Finn stands up. “Ready?”
We carry our food outside and eat while we walk down the quiet block. The air is clean and sweet. Jackson is a beautiful place—majestic even. “What are those called?” I ask pointing to the far away mountains to the north of us. There are other mountains and hills closer, but none as glorious as the snow covered tips we see in the distance.
“The Tetons?”
“I mean, I’ve heard of them—but I hadn’t seen them.”
He chuckles before stuffing another bite into his mouth.
My phone jingles and I lay my plastic fork in my paper dish to retrieve it from my back pocket. It’s a text from Cytha. I don’t open it, but I can see her question come up in my banner.
What did you find out?
“Is it your boyfriend?” Finn’s eyes watch me.
“My what?” Blinking in the sunshine, I stuff my phone back into my pocket and glance over at him. “I don’t have a boyfriend,” I say and his lips twitch in what can only be called a pre-grin.
“Your phone goes off and you always get this funny look on your face when you check it. I just assumed.”
“Well, you assumed wrong.” I lift my head to the sunshine. For some strange reason, I hesitate before offering more—maybe because I never offer more, but a strange part of me wants to. “It’s my best friend.”
“Huh.” He nods, his lips peeking into a half grin. “Does your best friend have a name?”
“Cytha.” I dig my phone out of my pocket again and show him my photo lock screen.
He nods. “You look tight.”
“Cytha’s the closest thing I have to a sister.”
“You don’t have any siblings, then?”
I’d hoped Marley had told him about my family—but his question at Dominic’s about my parents and now this, tells me she hasn’t. I wish she had. The pity on people’s faces when I tell them makes my gut churn.
There’s a trashcan nearby and I toss my half eaten dinner into the bin. Brushing my hands together, I sigh. “It’s a beautiful day.”
“Esther?” he says, unsure why a question about a brother or a sister would turn my mood as it so clearly has.
“I had a brother,” I say, my head still seeking out the sunshine. “He was a couple years older than me. He died.” I swallow, feeling the tension that I’ve brought to this easy day.
“What happened?”
We stop in front of the bookstore, but Finn doesn’t unlock the door. There’s a table and two chairs that I’ll be moving out of the way of the window as soon as my display is done. Finn sits in one of the chairs and blinks in the sun to look up at me.
I sigh. “It was a long time ago.”
He doesn’t say anything. He waits for me to join him.
I scan the ground and grind my teeth. Plopping in the chair next to him, I close my eyes. “Drunk driver. He collided with our car on the highway. We were heading to my Aunt Lisa’s for Christmas dinner, my mom, my dad, JoJo and me. I was the only survivor.” I say each name like it’s an item on a menu. I don’t normally share this story, but I know things about Finn that I wouldn’t had he not had that coughing fit. I know things because of Marley—that maybe he never would have told me. It compels me to share more.
“I’m sorry,” he says, pushing aside his own meal.
“Thanks.” I feel as if a bug crawls just beneath my skin, filling me with the need to move.
“How old were you?”
“I was almost six.”
“You didn’t come here. Where did you go?” He watches me and his eyes feel like lasers.
I clear my throat. Lisa. “My parent’s families didn’t get along. Mom was the sweetest,” my heart tells me that she was, “but Dad’s family didn’t like her. They claimed they were too different. Black, white. Wealthy, poor. City, country. Lisa said they had a hundred reasons to find fault with the marriage and they kept out of it. They pretty much cut them off. My Uncle Rodrick only met my mom a few times. I met him as a kid, but I don’t remember it.”
“So, your aunt?”
I almost forgot his original question. For some stupid reason, I got carried away. “Sorry, yes. Lisa’s my aunt—my great aunt actually—she took me in. My mom’s parents had died. And Dad’s family didn’t know me very well.”
“So, why now? Why did your uncle want you to come live now?”
“Is it that obvious that it wasn’t my choice?” I smirk a little, hiding the pain that he’s surfaced with his questions. “Lisa died. And I guess Rodrick’s full of guilt.”
His mouth twists. “I’m sorry about Lisa.”
I shake my head. “I loved Lisa. But I’ve been on my own for a decade.”
“What do you mean?” He stares at me and the blue in his eyes glimmers like sun on a crystal.
“Lisa was old and tired when I came to stay. Her husband had his own issues. In some ways Smitty was like a child himself. She was already tired from taking care of him. Don’t get me wrong, Lisa was good to me. She loved me. And I loved her. But I got myself up, got myself ready for school. I did my homework without her ever asking if it was done. She was there for me—but as a great aunt, not a parent.”
“Hmm.”
And now that he’s got me started, I am compelled to go on. “And now Rodrick and Summer think they need to parent me. They want to talk and bond, and I’m just not into it. I don’t need them. I’ve lived seventeen years without them.”
“On your own?”
“Yep.”
“So, you don’t need them, but do you ever want someone like that in your life?”
I blink—does he think he’s my school counselor? “No. Some people like being alone. I have Cytha when I need someone.”
He bobs his head, but doesn’t say more.
He’s opened me up like a soda can. “What about you?” I say.
“What about me?”
“I’ve kind of bared my soul here. Your life hasn’t been a piece of cake either. Tell me about it.”
He looks away from me, picking his food back up. “What’s to tell?”
“How old were you when they found the cancer?”
He shrugs a little. He isn’t surprised I know. “I don’t remember any of that. I was two.”
Harmony’s age—my heart patters a little faster thinking of that little girl sick rather than full of so much life. “But you got better.”
He snorts—he’s not nearly as happy to talk about himself as he was to hear my life story. “The chemo got rid of the cancer if that’s what you mean. But the doctors failed to tell my parents that this,” he taps his chest, “was a possibility.”
“But if they hadn’t done the chemo—”
“I would have died.” He says it so matter of factly. “But my parents would be healed by now.”
Would they? I’m not sure. “But you—”
“I live everyday knowing I can’t run, knowing a common cold will put me in bed for a month, knowing I’ll end each day out of breath and wearing an oxygen mask. It’s no way to live, Esther.” He shakes his head. “Not at eighteen.”