21. Josie

21

Josie

I don't think about the letter as I drive home to Silver Creek and pick Zane up from hockey practice. Yes, hockey. Levi played soccer, Milo and Tillie love swimming, but Zane just had to pick a contact sport—the sport I love and hate the most in equal parts.

Iris is a ballerina, or a ballet-girl, as she calls herself, and she's next on my pick-up list. I check the time and we're actually ahead for once, so I turn to my next-youngest brother. His hair is dark, like mine and Levi's, but it's curly like Mom's was. He has her blue eyes, too. He's taller than Levi now, and shows no signs of stopping.

"We've got enough time to swing by a drive-thru, if you want," I offer.

Before the words are even out of my mouth, Zane's nodding. "I'm gonna eat my own arm, Josie. I'm starving."

I make a left and head toward his favorite place. He smiles. The twins hate this restaurant because the chicken nuggets are "spicy," and Iris doesn't like that the fries have wrinkles. But Zane loves it here, and since the milkshakes are my favorite, it's our go-to place when it's just the two of us.

We place our order and pull around to pay and pick it up. I hand Zane his food and take a sip of my strawberry milkshake before setting it in the cup holder. He dives into his bag of greasy deliciousness as I head back out onto the highway.

Zane pauses to swallow, and I can feel his gaze on me.

"You ok, Josie?" he asks before shoving a handful of fries in his mouth.

I'm not, but I'm also not going to trauma-dump on my fifteen-year-old brother. He'd understand, though. I know he would. Beneath his mop of curly hair and moody teenager exterior, Zane's a gentle soul.

"I'm fine," I say, flipping my turn signal and checking behind me before merging left.

"You ordered a strawberry milkshake," he says, as though that's a clear indication I'm unwell.

"I like strawberry," I say, pasting a smile on my face.

Zane shakes his head. "You love strawberry. It's your favorite. But you never get it, because you never finish it. So you get vanilla and share with Iris."

"Iris isn't?—"

"She will be in five minutes," Zane says, cutting me off. I've had just about enough of men cutting me off in conversation today, thank you very much. But that's not Zane's fault; it's Van's. And I'm not thinking about Van or his letter. Not yet. Not until there's time to process. And there's no time now, because Zane is still talking. "Besides, you get strawberry when you're sad. Or when you're celebrating. And I'm not tryna be a dick, Josie, but you don't look like you're celebrating anything."

When we stop at a red light, I look at Zane, and reach over to nab a fry. "I'm spending quality time with my brother and he's interrogating me about my milkshake choice. What's not to celebrate?"

The light turns green and I fix my eyes back on the road.

"Good point," he says, and I can hear the smile in his voice.

We pick Iris up at Mrs. Fulton's and head home. Zane gets dinner started while I help Iris change into her dance clothes. We eat and chat about our days. Zane shows no signs of ever having eaten food before, let alone an hour ago. I wonder if Van was like that when he—nope, I am not thinking about Van. Not yet, I remind myself.

I can't dwell on Van, or the past, or all of the revelations he laid on me this afternoon. Right now, I have to get Iris to dance, pick up the twins, and then shuttle everyone back here for the pre-bedtime madness of finding shoes and laying out clothes and getting showers and finishing homework.

It's chaos, but I wouldn't want to be anywhere else.

Three hours later, the garage door grinds, and I hear Levi call my name.

"Josie, where—Shit, are you ok?"

"I'm fine," I lie. Levi doesn't believe me, of course. I'm not in my usual spot on the recliner. All the lights are off and I'm sitting in the darkest corner of the room, in my dad's favorite chair. It's cherry wood with dark green upholstery. It was part of a fancy furniture set he and mom bought when we moved in here right before Zane was born. Mom hated it and replaced all the stuffy furniture with comfy, livable pieces, but Dad kept one of the old chairs. We never sit in it, partly because it was his, and definitely because it's like sitting on a cloth-covered slab of stone. There's nothing soothing about the chair itself, but once I got home and got everyone settled, I sat down in it and reread Van's letter. I remembered the look on his face as he sat on my bed and shared a secret he's kept from nearly everyone for years.

And that's when I started to cry. I knew the tears would come; they always do. But I held them at bay for hours and then let them fall in the uncomfortable comfort of this chair.

Because when I reread that letter, I was once again a girl with a broken heart. A girl who needed her dad.

I look up at my brother to see that he's still in panic mode, and that's not fair. "No, I'm not ok, but the kids are all fine. Everyone's asleep except Zane. And he's eaten dinner four times tonight, so he should be good for a while." Levi's scooted an ottoman close and he's sitting right in front of me, a box of Kleenex in his hands.

"Can I make you some tea?" he offers, then smiles when I lift my cup. "Is that Earl Grey?"

"Of course," I say, even though he knows I hate the stuff. It was Mom's favorite. No one drinks it, but we keep it stocked anyway. And yeah, maybe that's a little weird, but if that's the craziest thing Levi and I do as stand-in parents, I think we're doing okay.

"Be right back," he says, setting the tissues on the side table and heading into the kitchen.

A few minutes later, he's returned with a steaming mug of tea for me and a cup of coffee for himself. I take my mug, breathe in the scent, and smile just a little. "Red hot cinnamon? You're breaking out the good stuff. I must be in pretty bad shape."

"You scared the shit of me, sitting in his chair in the dark, crying. Drink your candy-flavored hot water and tell me whose face I need to punch, Josephine. I haven't seen you this upset since you broke up with that dumbass hockey player a couple years ago."

I must make a noise or a face, because Levi swears.

"Holy shit, Josie. Are you back with the dumbass hockey player?"

"No," I say honestly. "Not really. Not at all, actually. I'm just tutoring him."

That doesn't calm my brother down. "And he made you cry? Again. What's this kid's name? Vance?"

I take a sip of my tea. "It's Van. Well, Beckett Vandaele, technically, but everyone calls him Van and don't go getting ideas about hunting him down and bashing his face in. You're not breaking your hand on my ex-boyfriend's face, or you won't play guitar for weeks and women on the internet will lose their minds."

Levi sighs. "Fine. Dickhead is safe only because social media might collapse if I stop singing sad love songs. Okay, it wouldn't collapse, but those sappy lyrics pay the bills, so I'll behave. Anyway...you never answered my question," he says, taking a sip of his coffee and a bite of chocolate chip cookie.

"Hey, you didn't tell me there were cookies," I say, snatching two.

Levi looks at me, appalled. "My sister's crying in the dark over a punk-ass boy. You're damn right I'm bringing cookies. Mrs. Fulton brought them over. Do you think she'd accept my proposal?"

I shake my head. "She's already married. And she's in her sixties."

"Wow, way to judge."

Levi manages to make me smile, despite my sullen mood. Then he hits me in the feels.

"You wanna talk about it? I promise not to go all big-brother on you. I am capable of listening, I swear."

I look down at the letter in my lap. It's too dark in here to read it, even with the light streaming in from the kitchen. It doesn't matter, though. I'm pretty sure I've memorized every perfectly imperfect word. I fold up the wrinkled paper and tuck it in my pocket. I don't keep secrets from Levi—our family dynamic wouldn't work if we did. But this isn't my secret to share and it's a trust I'd never betray, not as a tutor and not as a friend, if that's even what you'd call Van and me.

Levi nods in understanding. He knows I'd never keep anything important from him.

"He didn't make me cry," I say, finally getting around to answering him. "Not intentionally, anyway. I learned some things tonight, that's all. What happened between us years ago was as much my fault as it was his. And tonight I found out that there's more to the story. He's been trying to talk to me about it for the past few weeks and I kept refusing. But tonight, I listened. I'll spare you the details, but I don't know. I wish I could go back in time and fix what's broken. I can't, of course, but it feels like my heart is breaking all over again, for both of us."

Levi dunks another cookie into his coffee—a preference I'll never have—and looks at me. He's got Dad's eyes, just like I do. "You gonna take him back?"

I nearly choke on my tea. "What? No. I mean, he doesn't want that. He was just setting the record straight."

Levi shakes his head. "You learned to read when you were four, Josie. Mom found you in the living room going through my school bag and trying to read one of the books inside. You handed it to her and said, 'Show me.' By dinnertime, you made Dad drive us to the library to get the rest of the series."

"So?" I'm convinced now more than ever that my proclivity for reading really comes down to luck. Yes, my parents had something to do with it; we were always surrounded by books. My dad loved his crossword puzzles, and my mom was a trivia nut. My siblings and I are all sort of school-minded and while I'm sure our environment played a role, I think our brains are just wired that way. Van's isn't, but that doesn't mean he isn't intelligent. When I think of the lengths he's had to go to, the masking he's done—it boggles my mind. He's one of the smartest people I know, and I wish I could make him see that.

"You're smart. Like, crazy smart," my brother continues. "But you're missing something big here. If this guy's been begging you for weeks to hear his side of the story, if he wrote you that note that made you cry and reconsider everything you thought you knew? He's not doing it just to set the record straight, Josie. He's doing it because he wants you back."

His pronouncement made, my brother takes our cups into the kitchen and sticks them in the dishwasher. He calls goodnight and heads up the stairs, leaving me here with my thoughts. I really don't think Levi's right. I mean, Van hasn't given any indication that he wants to try again. At least, I don't think he has. I'm no expert on relationships. I could text Mel and get her advice, but I'm not so sure she's an unbiased source. Van said today that she's been urging him to talk to me for years. She's been doing the same to me. If I even hinted that I sort of thought he might possibly want to rekindle what we had, Mel would be thrilled.

But that's dangerous territory.

I mean, let's just go with Levi's theory for a minute. Let's say Van really does want to pick up where we left off. It would never work. He's headed to the AHL next year, and I'm willing to bet he'll go pro before long. I'm not one for any sort of spotlight. Van is the life of every party. I have no doubt he'll be the darling of New York or Chicago or wherever he ends up. That is not my world, but I'd never hold him back. Besides, my future is here—literally, right here in this house. I made a promise to Levi and I'm not breaking it. Even still, I love Zane, and Tillie, and Milo, and Iris with my whole heart. I want to come home. I want the simple joys I left. I want to work at their school library and run them to their activities and do science experiments and make cookies for bake sales. My family means everything to me, and I can't leave them. I won't, I know that for certain.

But I also know that at the very least, Van deserves an explanation. Our breakup took two people, and I share half the blame. He was vulnerable and honest with me today, so I owe him the very same thing.