Page 11

A wave of nausea hit me. Their wedding.

“Did he hit on you or something?” I could see my brother’s jaw clenching.

“No!” I said. That was the truth, wasn’t it? It wasn’t like that, it was…

I pinched the bridge of my nose, then reached for the door. “Nothing happened. He pulled me out of the river.” I don’t know why I didn’t share more than that. Maybe because Eli was always kind of hot under the collar—who knows what he’d do if he knew what I was really feeling?

“I know what it’s like to be the person left behind,” he said, following me inside.

He thought I was still thinking about Ned.

“No. You don’t. Your wife never cheated on you.” The words were too loud in the narrow corridor we’d stepped into. But the memory of what Ned did to me always came in too loud; the sting too deep.

“Maybe not,” Eli said. “But you know she told me she wasn’t in love with me, after I devoted my whole goddamned adult life to her.”

I stopped and stared at my brother, the sick feeling rising. “Listen, Eli. I’m sorry for what happened to you. But it’s not the same thing.”

I realized I was essentially goading my brother into a game of suffering Olympics. Which was ridiculous in the first place, but also, I did not want to discuss any of this right now.

Eli ran his hand up and down over the top of his head, mussing up his thick brown hair. I knew a lot of women found Eli attractive. They really went for that scruffy mop-head thing my brother had going. But to me he was just Eli, my idiot brother. Who of course I loved and cared about.

“So what sound did you make when you fell in the river?” He asked. “Was it like AHHHHH or AUGHUGHGUH?”

My jaw dropped.

Eli’s lips lifted into the beginnings of that grin girls loved so much. In high school, one of my girlfriends had called his grin devastating, and the thought still made me want to puke.

I narrowed my eyes. “You’re hilarious Eli. A riot. Why don’t you go on tour?”

The only reason I didn’t shove him now was because a tiny piece of my heart broke, seeing him smile like this. Eli used to be easy with it before his wife left him, and before Mom died. Now, I couldn’t remember the last time he’d smiled like that.

But he laughed now. “It’s a little funny. But I don’t wish falling in the river on anyone. And I’d never wish my big sister harm.”

He always used big to remind me he was younger than me. By seven minutes.

“Excuse me, I seem to remember youcheeringwhen I fell out of that tree when we were eight.”

Eli scoffed. “Only because you were too scared to get down. You didn’t want me to leave you there so I had to send Griffin to go get Dad. Then you slipped and fell out anyway.”

“You were throwing sticks at me! What if I had broken something? Would you have cheered then?”

“Depends what you broke.”

I stifled a laugh. “Why’d Mom and Dad have to have three of you guys? Imagine how nice our family would have been if it was just me and Chelsea.”

“Speaking of Chelsea,” Eli said, “we should get her to put up some signs warning people to stay off the trail for now.”

“She’s not your secretary, Eli. Why don’tyouprint some signs?”

“I’m the CFO,” he said with mock indignation.

“And she’s head of events! Between conferences and bar mitzvahs, our baby sister pulls in almost a third of our operating revenue.”

“I was the one who told you that,” Eli said.

“So who’s more important? The one who tells me that, or the one who does it?”

Now it was Eli’s turn to scowl.