drifted down my neck. “Just come on,” I said. Turning in the seat, my brother began digging around on the floor. He had the balls to not even look at me? That pushed me to the edge. “Stop ignoring me! This is why I had to come here in the first—”
“I'm not ignoring you.” With an umbrella in hand, Sean stumbled towards me down the aisle. “I'm just making sure neither of us drowns out there.”
Thrown off by his sudden compliance, I followed him out into the storm. The parking lot was flooded, puddles forcing us to walk in awkward patterns. He held the umbrella over both our heads, the nearness reminding me of when we'd walk home together from school as kids.
My mind was already in a strange spot. Nostalgia was doing its best to ruin my courage. When Sean spoke, I visibly jumped. “Lola, why are we out here?”
Lifting my eyes, I watched the edge of the umbrella. Rain fell to its death in rivulets. “I needed to corner you. You've been avoiding me ever since... ever since Drez and I...” My cheeks burned so hot I expected to see steam.
“That's not it.” He halted in front of the quiet road, the surface shiny from the street lights. I felt him looking at me, but I kept watching the edge of the canopy. “I wasn't avoiding you because you slept with him. I don't care about any of that.”
Burying my hands in my pockets, I searched for warmth and found none. “Is it because we haven't been talking as much? I promised to tell you all sorts of things, and then I stopped, I know, but...”
“No. Lola, you don't get it.” The edge of the umbrella wavered; rain tumbled in a cascade into the street, melting away. “It's not about any one thing. It's all of it together. It's what it means for me.”
That threw me off. “What does it mean for you?” What is he...
“It means you don't need me anymore.”
My eyes were frozen on his, searching the depths of his sapphire-blues to better understand the hurt, the defeat, simmering there. “Of course I need you! Sean, you're my brother. I'm always going to need you.”
I despised how sad his smile was. “I guess I just wanted to be the one you always came to for help... for whatever. I don't know. After everything I've done—well.” He broke the stare, gazing off at the nothingness of the thunderclouds. “I'm just being selfish. You made it to the top. I wanted to see you get there, but I also wanted to be there with you. I guess I wasn't ready for your success.”
Was it possible for my heart to crumble? I grabbed his wrist where it brushed the umbrella handle. “What are you talking about? You're the one who...” Who I always looked up to. Who is—was—at the top. All at once, I understood the wall between my brother and I.
His eyes glistened. Sean knew what I'd just grasped. “Yeah," he said. "You're where I always dreamed I'd be. Headlining a tour like this makes you better than me, Lola. Maybe you always were.”
“No! No, I wasn't. I'm not.” A compliment had never cut so deep. I didn't want to be better than Sean. He'd taught me everything and he'd worked so hard. He was the one who should be in my shoes. “Stop acting like your dream is over.”
He adjusted his grip on the umbrella, crushing it. I felt it under my fingers. “You don't get it. There's no way to climb past this.”
"'This.' What does 'this' mean?" Eyeing the tension in his jaw, I listened to the rain drumming around us. “There has to be a way for Barbed Fire to go further.” Life can't be unfair like that. “It's all you ever wanted, right? How can you even imagine giving up?”
His frown was soft on the edges. “If I knew of a way to succeed, would you help me?”
I stood straighter with a rush of excitement. I wanted to cling to the tiny speck of hope in his question. “Of course! You know I'll help you anyway I can, Sean.”
There was a storm in his eyes, it was far greater than the one that roared around us. The words that left his mouth clawed away the last of my warmth. “I want you to leave Four and a Half Headstones.”
My tongue stuck inside my mouth. “W—what?”
Sean curled his palm around my fingers on the handle,