It hit me hard, right in the chest. I swayed on my feet. Jordan’s arms around my shoulders were the only thing that kept me from falling over. Tears spilled over my eyes and aching sobs filled my chest. I’d been called a lot of things by a lot of people, but never from my sister. Not like that, not with such authority and truth. She meant what she said and nothing I could say would change her opinion.
Breanna never looked back. Not even once.
“She’s wrong,” Jordan hissed, his voice filled with anger.
“No.” I shook my head as she spun her truck around in our driveway and slung gravel all the way down the street.
My dad stood on our back porch, shaded from the late afternoon sun. He looked across the street at me and gave what I could only interpret as a sad smile before turning back into the house.
He’d heard it all.
“Well, I’m glad that’s over without bloodshed.” Aiden shoved his fingers in his front pockets and whistled. He and Vic flanked Jordan and me.
The four of us stood there for a bit as if we were surveying the destruction left behind by Hurricane Breanna.
“Your sist—” Jordan started.
“Don’t man.” Aiden held up a hand. “She’s still my sister, even if I don’t completely agree with her. They both are. I’m Switzerland right now, leave me out of it.”
I pulled free of Jordan’s arms. “I need to go.”
Numbly, I walked across the street, leaving the three men staring after me. None of them stopped me, of that I was thankful. But when I looked back, Aiden’s hand was on Jordan’s chest, holding him in place. Aiden and I were a lot alike. His actions proving that he knew I needed something none of them could give.
“Hey there, Rae.” My dad stood making coffee at the kitchen counter. Rick Casey and his coffee were never far apart, no matter what time of the day it was.
“Hey.” I stopped at the back door and fought the tremble in my voice. “I guess you heard all that.”
“Yup.” He poured a cup and turned, cocking a hip on the counter behind him. I was struck with how very much Aiden looked like him. Right down to the errant hair that constantly fell over his right eye. “Your brother called me after he talked to your sister.”
“Daddy, I—” I wiped the tears from my face with the palms of my hands. “It’s stupid, I shouldn’t keep crying. Bu…”
“Your sister said some pretty awful things.” “Yeah.” Awful things that were true.
“That weren’t true.” He practically read my mind.
I looked up at him. The set of his jaw, the surety in his eyes, told me he believed what he’d said just as much as Breanna had believed what she had said. “I know you’ve been through a lot, Rae. I know there are a lot of things you don’t tell us, but we saw the changes in you—” He held up a hand when I opened my mouth. “Hear me out, you’ve been different. But the person who felt that difference the most? Was Breanna.”
He let that hang in the air for a while. My dad didn’t say much, never really had, but he was an observer. I’d been naïve to think he hadn’t seen any difference in me. Just as Breanna was naively convinced he had no clue she was running off whenever she could. He knew all of us, very well.
He continued with the easy way he had, that was so much like Aiden. “She looks up to you, in a lot of ways she wants to be like you. But, she isn’t, she never will be. Breanna will never see the world like you do. You see the gray, everything in between the black and white. You see the good in the bad and the bad in the good.”
I accepted the cup of coffee he handed me. It lacked creamer but wasn’t half bad. I took a soothing sip and let him finish putting things in perspective for me. I hoped he could do the same for Breanna.
“Your sister sees black and white. Everything is either right or wrong, nothing can be a bit of both. I know, because I was a lot like her at that age. It took this really smart woman to show me life wasn’t always cut and dry.
“You’re a lot like that woman. I see it every time I look at you.” He tucked an errant strand of my hair behind my ear before I had the chance. “You’re just like her.”
“It’s funny.” I went to him and hugged him, surprised my voice didn’t come out in a squeak. “I was thinking how much Aiden reminds me of you.”
“Yup.” He wrapped an arm around me as I snuggled into his side. “Do you love him, Raelynn?”
He didn’t mean Aiden. “I think I always have.” “That’s what I’ve been afraid of,” he said with a
touch of humor in his voice. “I think your sister fancies
herself in love with that McAllister boy.” He sighed, sadly. “It’s misguided and unrequited, much like his feelings for you. But, she thinks she loves him.”
I balked and started to argue with him. That Breanna would be in love with Devin was about the most ridiculous thing ever. He cut me off with a wave of his hand. “She looks at him the very same way you look at Jordan. Always has. Just because she doesn’t say it, doesn’t tell you, doesn’t make it less true in her eyes. Breanna keeps a lot of things to herself. She gets that from me. We don’t always say what we feel, we keep it inside until it’s too late.”
“Damn.” I had never thought of that. I wouldn’t have thought Breanna capable of keeping such a secret from me. Then again, I’d kept a lot from her. Keeping secrets from the people you loved, that loved you, wasn’t the best idea. That was a lesson I’d take to my grave.
“Yeah.” He squeezed me to him. “So, remember that. She was wrong, both with her words and for even saying them at all. But, she can’t help herself. When she loves something, when she feels that something is right, she’ll fight to the death to protect it…I know, I’m the same way.”
There wasn’t much I could say to any of that. “Now, go let him know you’re all right. He’s
chomping at the bit over there.”
Dad was right, Jordan was pacing in front of his shop as the sun started to set. My brother and Vic were getting the Malibu ready to be loaded. He met me in the middle of the street that ran between our houses.
“You okay?”
“Yeah.” I let myself be wrapped in his arms. My dad had been the talk I needed, the strength I’d needed to find.
“Don’t be mad at her,” I whispered to him. “You’ve got to be kidding me, Raelynn,” Jordan
argued. He held me at arm’s length and snorted. “I have every right to be mad at her. She came in my hou—”
I placed a finger over his lips to silence him. “She’s in love with him.”
“Devin?” His face lit up incredulously.
“Yeah.” This from Aiden as we walked up the driveway. “I’d bet he knows it too and that’s why he called her.”
“To start shit.” Vic shook his head sadly from the empty stall where Devin’s car had sat.
“Seemed like it.” Aiden loaded more stuff into the back of the shop truck.
“Dude,” was all Vic could say. He looked helpless, as if he were being forced to pick sides in a war he wanted no part of.
“Why don’t you go find him, check on him,” I offered.
“Nah, I’m good. Let’s get loaded up.” With that from Vic, the three of them went back to work as I watched, wondering how the best day of my life had turned into one of the worst. How sides could be chosen so easily when we were all supposed to be part of the same team.