I was three. When she contacted me to come here when I was younger, it was the first we’d heard from her in three years.” I smile, proud of myself. Years ago, I vowed to stop protecting the people who didn’t give me the same in return. I add, “Whatever story she told you was a lie, probably to gain your pity. And I’m sorry she did that to you.”
Tom’s quiet a beat, his eyes on mine, and I look away. It’s too much. “No, Mia,” he says eventually. “I’m sorry she did that to you.”
I shrug, try to play it down. There’s only so much childhood trauma I can handle right now.
“You’re welcome to it,” he says, his voice picking up, and when I look at him, he’s pointing to the bike. “It’s yours.”
Shaking my head, I answer, “I’m good, thanks.” Besides, the bike was never mine. Nothing here was ever mine.
Before he has a chance to reply, his phone rings, and he answers, mumbling something to the tune of “I’ll be right there.” He glances at me one more time, and I can tell he wants to say something, but neither of us knows what, and so he nods, and I do the same, then I stick to my original plan of why I came to the garage in the first place: to hide. I sit on the apartment steps, and, as a much-needed distraction, I go through my emails on my phone, archiving, marking, forwarding, replying, over and over. I don’t know how long I sit there, getting lost in my work when I hear male voices approaching. I look up and see the three youngest Preston boys round the corner. They smile when they see me, and then continue into the garage. A moment later, when they come back out, one of the twins is holding a box of sky lanterns, and Lachlan, the “baby,” who’s now a teenager, is carrying a box of fireworks. It’s only now I realize I’ve been working from my phone for hours, and the sun is beginning to set. I blink the fatigue from my eyes and stand. The boys start to leave. Well, two of them do. One stays. The empty-handed twin. “It’s Mia, right?” he asks, and his voice… he sounds so much like Leo, like the eighteen-year-old version of him that’s trapped in my mind when I allow myself to think about him. The boy standing in front of me would be about the same age now.
I nod. “Liam?”
His smile reaches his eyes. “You had a fifty-fifty shot of getting it right.” A small chuckle filters from his lips. “And you got it.”
I force a smile. I could always tell the difference between the identical twins. It’s their hairlines. The widow’s peaks are off-center. Liam’s is slightly on the left, and Lincoln’s is the right. It was the only way I could tell them apart when I was younger.
“We’re about to set off the lanterns,” Liam tells me, his grin crooked as he motions his head toward the party. “You should come and watch.”
It’s strange, this jolt of emotion that nags at me. For so many days during the summers, all I wanted was to be included and be part of their world. And this… this is all it took. Such a tiny gesture. Too bad it came almost a decade late. I open my mouth to decline, to make up some stupid excuse, but before I can, he shrugs, says, “It’s for my mom. It’s just a thing we do. She’s up there, you know? In heaven. So we set the skies ablaze, let her know we’re thinking of her.”
Well, shoot. My shoulders deflate, along with my facade. How the heck can I say no to that?
Liam and I walk side by side toward the party. We don’t talk, but I can tell that he’s shortening his steps to match mine so he doesn’t leave me behind. Another small gesture years too late. When we get closer and I’m surrounded by the rest of the non-Preston guests, he throws me a quick, “I’ll catch ya later,” and then starts jogging to catch up with the rest of his siblings. He must yell out something because a few of them turn to him. Lucas is the first, but his eyes don’t find Liam immediately. They find mine. The blue of his eyes becomes black as I take them in, let them seep into my veins, replacing my