‘Some random.’ She smiles but it doesn’t reach her eyes. There’s sadness and defiance in her features now. ‘In the toilet stalls. It was not the stuff of romance novels but, at the same time, it was just what I needed.’ She tilts her chin, daring me to disagree.
I don’t. I understand the healing power of sex, the ability it has to confer a sense of intimacy when we need it most. I lean forward, pressing our foreheads together.
‘I’m glad we could celebrate your birthday together this year.’
She blinks, surprised that’s my only comment on this. And then she kisses me, a kiss that is soft and slow and that grips something inside me and doesn’t let go.
‘I don’t want you to be alone, Avery.’
She pulls back. ‘I’m not interested in dating you, Barrett. I’m not what you’re looking for.’
I ignore the strange feeling inside me and shake my head. ‘You have family out there—family who desperately want to meet you—and I can’t help but think how much you’ll regret it if you pass that opportunity up.’
‘I really won’t.’ She’s putting more space between us now, straightening and reaching for her fork once more.
‘You say that, but you don’t know.’
‘And you do?’
My laugh is hollow. ‘Oh, Avery. Yeah, I know. I’d give just about anything I possess to have another day with my sister. You don’t get it, but you’ve been given a gift. To have three brothers out there—great guys you will absolutely love—and to choose to turn your back on that?’
‘You had a sister?’
‘Yes. I know what I’m talking about here. Family is precious. You shouldn’t dismiss that so quickly.’
She swallows, her expression shifting. ‘What happened to her?’
I don’t talk about Caroline often, but when I do people usually tiptoe around the subject. I appreciate Avery’s directness.
‘She got sick.’ Apparently, I’m not able to be quite as direct. ‘And died.’ My lips shift into an awkward-feeling shape. I think it’s an approximation of a smile.
‘When?’
‘Seventeen years ago.’
‘So she was still young?’
‘She was seventeen.’
‘And you were sixteen. Close in age and close in general?’
‘Yes.’ I eat something even when my stomach is too tight to contemplate digestion. ‘We grew up in the countryside. There wasn’t a lot to do. Our parents abhorred technology, television—all that American pop culture that was infiltrating our lives—so we spent a lot of time together, growing up. We used to put on talent shows for our poor mother and father.’ Now my smile is a little more natural. ‘Losing her was the hardest thing I’ve ever been through and not a day goes by that I don’t think of her, that I don’t wish I could
have done something to save her.’
‘I know what that’s like.’ Avery leans closer, and I don’t think she’s even aware she’s doing it; it’s just like a compulsion to be near me, to share this together.
I don’t deny what she’s said, even when it’s not quite accurate. Losing someone you love is a unique grief, but where her mother’s death was one of those awful random events that could never have been prevented by Avery, my parents and I will always feel a degree of culpability for my sister’s death.
‘What kind of sickness was it?’
I stiffen a little, my reticence now surprising me. ‘Do you mind if we don’t talk about it?’
She blinks. ‘I...of course.’ She furrows her brow, looks towards her Chinese and takes a bite.
Silence hangs between us, heavy and full of sadness and serious thoughts. What we need is a circuit-breaker on all this. ‘What if we make a deal?’
She looks at me and my breath catches somewhere in the region of my throat. She’s so beautiful, and never more so than like this—hair tousled, expression curious, eyes genuine and softened, completely open to me, not pushing at me, holding me at a distance.