Claire looked up from the throw pillow she’d hugged to her chest. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Well, c’mon.” Eileen snorted.
“Come on, what?”
“You’ll be in Connecticut next year,” Eileen elaborated, “as you’ve made us aware countless times. So here’s a Christmas for the books, huh? Before you leave.”
Claire tried to swallow the barb-edged tickling in her throat.
“Maybe we could visit though?” Murphy said from the couch. Her voice was tentative, as though she was expecting a no.
Wasn’t that reasonable? Why would Claire invite Murphy to Yale? Claire never spent time with her younger sister as it was. She’d had an online shop to run, high school to conquer, extracurriculars to add to her résumé. What she hadn’t had was the energy to put up with Murphy’s bad jokes and attempted “magic shows”—card tricks resulting in wrong guesses, mystical quarters that ended up falling out of turtleneck sleeves. Murphy had been a kid, and she still acted like one. Was that the way it was with babies of the family? Claire wasn’t sure. She just knew that she’d been too busy to deal.
Why would Yale have changed any of that?
The shifting sensation was back, only this time it wasn’t on Claire’s tongue. The tiny creatures were writhing inside her, in the ventricles of her heart. Restless. Relentless. An itch she couldn’t dig deep enough to scratch.
It was terrible, the feeling of regret.
Because what if she’d been doing it wrong, all this time?
She looked to where Murphy lay on the couch, red hair tangled, limbs akimbo, then to where Eileen sat, propped up on her elbows, black smudges lining her cheekbones. How had Claire lived with these two humans, so close inside one house, but so far away? How had she been seeing them for years, but not seeing them? Somehow, in the midst of Claire’s goal charting and vision boarding, Murphy and Eileen had transformed. They’d stopped being her sisters, and they’d become part of Emmet, Oregon, instead. They’d turned to mere landscape, part of the life she had to leave behind.
Maybe it was the regret, or the aftershock of eating maggot-filled chocolate. Maybe it was that this was the most messed up Christmas anyway. Whatever the reason, Claire said the words.
“I didn’t get in.”
Speaking them out loud was a dagger stab to the throat. The blade pierced through skin, and the blood ran down, hot on Claire’s neck.
“Wait, what?” Murphy sat up on the couch.
“I didn’t get in,” Claire said, louder, feeling strangely euphoric. At last she was announcing it for everyone to hear: She wasn’t the Exceller she’d tried to be. “They rejected me. Yale. They said no.”
Eileen was staring at Claire, face slack. “What the hell?”
“Yeah.” Claire shrugged. “What the hell.”
“What about other colleges?” asked Eileen. “U of O, or OSU? You applied to those too, right?”
Claire didn’t speak.
“Shit,” said Eileen.
Claire dipped her chin into the throw pillow. “Go ahead and tell me what an asshole I’ve been, and how Harper Everly is a joke, and that’s what I get for trying so hard.”
Eileen remained quiet. Claire felt pressure on her arm—the lightest graze of three fingers. It was Murphy, leaning off the couch.
“Sorry, Claire,” she said, and nothing else.
Eileen’s jaw had tightened and her eyes shone, rabid, in the firelight.
“Fuck them,” she said. “Elitist pricks. You’re the goddamn smartest, put-together asshole I know. If they can’t see that, they’re idiots. So, fuck ’em.”
Claire blinked. Her blood was pouring out slower, euphoria gone. Despite her night of hard sleeping, she felt exhausted. And maybe she was delirious, because she was almost certain Eileen was being nice to her.
Like the Eileen from five years ago, who’d listened when Claire had told her she was gay. Not in so many words, because Claire was thirteen then and figuring things out, but Eileen had understood what she was trying to express.
She’d said, “That’s cool, Claire. It’s more than cool.” And she’d added, “Don’t take shit from anyone.”
Claire had forgotten that. Not that Eileen knew her secret—you couldn’t ever forget who you’d told—but that she’d accepted it easily, and well. She’d been … a good sister.
The way she was being now.
Claire wasn’t ready for that. For any of this.
“I need to be alone,” she said, realizing as she stood how true the words were. “I … just … need to be alone.”
She stumbled out of the tangle of blankets, heading for the grand staircase.
“But Claire!” Murphy called after her. “It’s dark and cold up there!”