torn at the seams as people latched on to him, pulling and stretching.
If only I could sew him back together.
The movie ended past midnight and as the credits rolled, Sean sat up and looked at me. I wasn’t sure what he saw on my face, but it prompted him to reach out a hand. “Come here,” he prompted.
I scooted over and leaned into his side, letting him wrap his arms around my shoulders and kiss the top of my head the way he used to when we were in high school and he was consoling me over some boy who’d said something mean. “I’m sorry I’m such a tool.”
I didn’t respond. I couldn’t tell him it was okay—it wasn’t.
He walked me out soon after and I gave him one last hug. “Good luck with the music video.”
He gave a dramatic sigh. “You had to bring that up, did you?”
“You’ll make a great post-apocalyptic Robin Hood,” I said with a smirk and a wave.
He just shook his head and watched me go.
CHAPTER FIVE
I was puttering around my apartment, waiting for it to be time to get ready for my date with Jonas, when my dad called. My lips curved into a smile as I answered. “Hey, Dad.”
“Hey, Blue Eyes. You doing okay?” he asked in a voice that suggested I wasn’t.
“Yeah, I’m good. Why do you ask?”
“I saw an interesting photo the other day…”
I rolled my eyes. “Oh yeah?”
“A certain mysterious young woman dragging a celebrity out of a bar.”
My jaw twitched. “Yup, that was me.” I tried to make my voice sound light.
“Again?”
I let out a tired sigh. “Yeah.”
“So, how’s our boy?” he asked, his voice laced with concern.
“Oh, the usual. He’s making great music and terrible life choices.”
“I know it’s tough on you, but I’m glad he has someone to keep him grounded.”
“For whatever good it does,” I mumbled. “Besides, someone had to try.” I wasn’t proud of the note of bitterness that seeped through.
“You can’t blame Debbie. Her mother heart just couldn’t take it anymore.”
I felt bad that he had picked up on my jab at Debbie. I didn’t need to burden him with that. Dad and Debbie were good friends. Solidarity among single parents, I guess. But sometimes I just didn’t understand how she could have walked away. Maybe if she had stuck it out, he would have gotten better instead of continuing his downward spiral.
Then again, I had stuck around and he was still crashing and burning.
“I know,” I said. “It’s just…he got into it so young, and he didn’t have anyone to tell him how that world worked or give him boundaries and limits.”
“That’s life, Sweet Pea. I’m not saying it’s fair. It’s not. But we’re all just doing the best we can. Sean got a bum deal in some ways and a golden ticket in other ways. He’s the only one who can figure out how to make that work together.”
I gave a deep sigh. “I know.”
“So how are you really? I know that yesterday…”
Yes. Yesterday. “I miss her.”
“I know you do.”
“And he misses her, which…” is almost worse. Or compounded my grief and my guilt or something.
“Which what?” he prompted.
“It’s just hard to feel both his pain and mine.”
“You three…” he trailed off. That’s what he and Debbie had always called us. You three, as if we were one unit. In many ways we had been. We were together so often and working toward the same thing so frequently that it was easy to see us as one.
I loved Serena—she was like an older sister—but we didn’t have the same bond that Sean and I shared, or that Sean and Serena shared. There was no doubt that she was my family, but in a less intense way. She’d been one of the few steady presences in my life—until she wasn’t. Her death sent shrapnel into the fabric of the bonds the rest of us shared. It shredded the bond I had once felt with Debbie and poked holes in my relationship with Sean.
I let out a measured sigh. “Yes, us three. And now it’s just us two, and it’s not the same. He’s not the same.”
“You went to see him?”
“Yeah. He asked me to come over. He said he wanted to apologize, and I didn’t want him to be alone on that day.”
“Him apologizing is good.” That was dad, looking on the bright side.
“Yeah.” I rubbed my fingers over my brow. “It would be even better if he didn’t need to apologize.”