I told him Andie was awake. I ignored his relief. I ignored his love. I had to in order to say what I needed to say. I told him not to call me anymore. I told him it was over. And then I hung up and switched my phone off.
I dashed into the nearest bathroom and made the toilet right as I threw up. After a while, I was just dry heaving.
I gave Jake up for Andie and I didn’t even know if she forgave me. What if she hated me? What could I say?
And worse… how could I face her when there was a darkness deep inside me that resented her and the choice I’d just made?
I never did go into the hospital room again.
During the first twenty-four hours, I hovered outside, looking in through the windows, ignoring my parents’ and Rick’s pleas to come inside and speak to Andie while she slept.
The next day when Andie became cognizant, I did the same—hiding and peeking in when I was sure she wasn’t aware. The doctors said she had a recovery period ahead. She was a little dazed, confused, and although she recognized everyone, she couldn’t remember much before the accident.
I hid out at Starbucks a lot and on the third day, Dad hunted me down to bring me to Andie.
“I told her you were here,” he said, disappointment and annoyance in his eyes. He didn’t like the way I was behaving. Hiding from her. He didn’t understand.
“Did she ask for me?” If she asked for me, I’d have to go to her.
Dad frowned. “No.”
“Does she remember the argument?”
Dad scratched his unshaven cheek and looked away uncomfortably. “I think so.”
“Then I’m staying right where I am.”
A week later I returned home to Lanton with my parents without having spoken to my sister. I’d spied on her a lot as she sat talking to friends and family, but she’d had no idea I was there.
Andie was recovering fast—she had some physical and mental therapy to go through, but the doctors were impressed with how well she was doing and Rick insisted he could take care of her.
Mom and Dad had to get back to work, but they told Rick they’d come to Chicago every weekend until Andie was fully recovered. They seemed stronger back in Chicago. They seemed like themselves again.
But when we returned to Lanton, I realized it was all a mask for Andie’s benefit. That fragility that had scared me so much reappeared. Mom started disappearing to the cemetery almost every day—it pissed me off. I thought it was morbid. I was helping Mom out in the florist a lot because she was so distracted all the time. She was constantly calling Rick or Dad for reassurances. I realized that she and Dad were both afraid that someone was going to tell them that Andie’s recovery was a sick joke—that any minute now, she’d close her eyes and never open them again. As for Dad, he didn’t talk to me much in those first few months.
As far as he was concerned, I’d abandoned Andie as soon as she woke up.
I hadn’t abandoned her.
I just didn’t know how to face her, or deal with my conflicting emotions.
I missed my sister. I missed Jake. So much, it hurt. Especially at night, when I’d lay my head on my pillow and I couldn’t think of anything else but how much I wanted my life to go back to the way it used to be.
I argued with myself over and over that what I’d promised God… it wasn’t rational, I couldn’t be held to it. But what if…
What if I accepted Jake back into my life, what if I made my family accept him into their lives, and suddenly, Andie’s eyes closed and they never opened again?
It was a little better when Claudia finished up in Edinburgh and flew to Indiana to live with us. She eased my parents, lit them up in a way I couldn’t right now. She eased me too. I felt like I was forever on the brink of an argument with my folks, and Claudia always reminded me that they didn’t need to deal with my issues right now. So we suffered in stilted silence.
The only time it broke was when I yelled at Mom for visiting the cemetery. I told her it was morbid and it creeped me out—like she was just waiting for something bad to happen to Andie.
Mom told me calmly but with tears in her eyes that she was visiting her mom’s grave. “She’s the only one who would understand what I’m going through right now. I talk to her and I know she can hear and it gives me comfort.”
At that, she’d walked out of the house and my dad said more than two sentences to me for the first time in weeks. He shouted at me for being self-involved and told me to apologize.
I did. I tucked my tail between my legs and apologized.
And then I promptly went online and found out what I needed to do to sit the LSATs in the fall. I’d upset my parents enough this year. It was time to do something for them—something selfless.