brother is just as strong as it was two years ago. That, if he’s anything like the Lynch brother I know, she had no option other than to fall in love with him. They are easy to love, easy to fall deeply and madly in love with.
“You’re okay with us?” Her voice is lower and more hesitant than it was moments ago.
“Yeah. I mean, you’re an adult. You can do what you want.”
“And I want Spencer. Over and over—”
“Ariel,” I sigh.
I want Crosby over and over.
“Oh, yeah, sorry. Thanks for being cool about it,” she says.
I nod, hiding my jealousy that she’s gotten what she wants without all the drama. Taking my arm out of hers, I swing it over her shoulders and pull her toward me.
“Yeah, you must have caught me on a good day.” I kiss the top of her head.
The relationship between my sister and me has grown a lot over the years. My senior year of high school, I couldn’t stand her. She’d steal my clothes, and we’d fight over the bathroom, but she was the one who was there for me after the accident. She was the one who’d console me after I woke up in a cold sweat. Hell, she slept with me until I went to college.
“Tell me about Crosby,” she says, sitting back up and straddling the cement wall to face me.
I shrug. “The school paper wants to do an article about him. They want me and Brax to do interviews, too. How he overcame the tragedy.”
Her face pales. “Has he? Overcome it?”
She asks the question I’ve questioned while lying awake for the last three nights.
“No. I don’t see much difference from how he was two years ago, but he’s agreed to do the article if Spencer and you agree. That’s progress.”
She nods. “Why do you want our approval?”
I shouldn’t have expected any less than her worrying about me.
“Because it will affect both of you if people know our relationship.”
“I don’t care about that. If it helps Crosby, you have my agreement to whatever. But what about you, El. Can you handle trudging all this up?”
“For him, I will.”
As soon as the newspaper called me, I made the decision to talk only if Crosby needed me to, and from the conversation in the weight room, he does.
“You still love him?” she asks.
I pick at a weed that has forced its way through the crack of the cement. To me, the weed resembles the love between Crosby and me. The weed might have been buried by the weight of the cement, but it continued until it reached the sun.
“I have Liam,” I counter.
She laughs. “Oh, sis. You know you guys getting together is inevitable, right?”
Do I? Yeah, but we can’t move on if one or both of us doesn’t let go. I suppose, but there’s still the question if we can find ourselves without healing from the past.
“Yeah,” I mumble. If Crosby continues to pursue me, I’ll fold, happily. “He needs to sort out his issues first because I won’t allow my heart to break again. We have to go all the way the second time around. Otherwise, I’m not sure I’ll survive.”
She wraps her arms around my shoulders, almost making me lose my balance, but she grips me harder to stop my body from teeter-tottering.
“You’re so level headed. Do you know that? I mean, if it were me and he were Spencer, I’d have already screwed him. But you? You place that arm out and stop him in his tracks.”
If she only knew how hard that was, how many times I’d wavered on that line…
I’m not sure if that’s a compliment or an insult. There has been more than one time when I wished I could be carefree, like my sister, but that Ella who took risks and thought later, died in the car.
“Are you okay with the newspaper article? I mean, I don’t know if people will even read it or put together the fact that you’re my sister, but I wanted to talk to you about it.”
She nods. “I’m fine with it, especially if you think it will help Crosby.”
I push myself off the ledge of the wall, my feet landing on the sidewalk with a thump. “Thanks, sis.”
Her feet fall to the ground. “You’re welcome. I’m nice like that,” she jokes.
Then, we start our way back to her building.
We enter Musselman Hall, and Spencer and Crosby are in the commons area. Spencer is on the couch with an ice