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But even still, in this moment, finally understanding the truth, she didn’t know how to make things right. She didn’t know how to make herself feel better.

20

I talked to Umma earlier,” Will said, pinching his dirt-covered fingers together. “Seems like she’s this close to pulling one of her surprise visits, probably already has her bag packed.”

Will was on his hands and knees in front of his house, clad in gardening gear and pulling weeds while Franny sulked on the porch steps a few feet away.

“I literally talked to her the other day, Oppa.” Franny laughed.

She’d been making a concerted effort to call home more, especially after a particularly heartfelt conversation with her mother. They’d taken to talking about football, but the topic always gave way to other things. Earlier in the week, she’d learned that her umma had a brief dalliance with an Argentinian car salesman in her early twenties. Franny didn’t really know what to do with all the new things she was learning about her umma, but she’d briefly considered writing all the stories down.

“You know she needs a lot of attention.” Will grunted. “Kenny and Phillip don’t call nearly enough, and there’s only so much I can take. I need you to step up, Franny.”

“I know. I’m sorry. I’m trying to do better, I swear. I’ve just been caught up with… a bunch of other stuff. I’ll call her on the drive home and see how she’s doing.”

Her brother paused, leaning up on his knees to wipe a forearm across his sweaty forehead. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” she said. She looked away with a shrug.

She didn’t tend to talk about her romantic problems with her family. To be fair, they didn’t tend to share theirs with her either. Whenever she talked to her parents or her brothers about a woman she was dating, she kept things as matter-of-fact as possible. Part of her had always felt like they couldn’t possibly understand. The other part had just found it soul-achingly awkward.

“Something’s wrong,” Will said, clearly in the mood to argue. “You’ve been acting weird all summer. Tell me what’s up.”

She put a hand over her brow, shielding her eyes from the sun as she looked at her brother. He was pink-cheeked and sweaty, but she could see that he was also genuinely concerned.

“There’s a girl…” Franny trailed off. She leaned her elbows back on the concrete step behind her, hoping that the nonchalant pose would rub off on her tone.

“Of course.”

She rolled her eyes. “She’s nothing like Caroline.”

It was true. For all her faults, unsurety, and indecisiveness, Jade was the complete opposite of Caroline. She wasn’t flighty or wishy-washy, and even if they both did share an obvious fear of diving in, Franny knew that Jade’s came from someplace other than viewing people as inherently expendable.

“What’s she like, then?” Will asked.

Franny tilted her face up to the sun. Feeling the warmth on her skin somehow made it easier to talk about Jade accurately. “She’s incredibly fucking frustrating, for one.” She laughed. “Like, deeply stubborn and a little obstinate. But I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who knows her who has anything but a kind thing to say abouther. She’s so good with the kids, and she loves football so much. She stuns me.”

Will made a lowhmmm, but Franny didn’t even pause for effect—she was on a roll.

“I feel like all I do is sit around and think about what it is about her that makes me want her. I’m always trying to put it into words, but honestly, I can’t. I’ve never been good at that anyway, but with her, it’s like I never had enough words to begin with to describe it all.”

“So what’s the issue, then? She doesn’t like you back?”

“No, she does,” Franny said, her words full of conviction. “She definitely does.”

“Well”—Will waved an arm around in the air—“be together, then.”

“It’s not that easy, dude.”

“Sure it is.”

“It was that easy for you and Yao?”

The question sounded sarcastic, but there was more genuine interest behind it than even she realized at first. Will had told the family that he was seriously dating someone about a week before he’d brought Yao home to meet them. It wasn’t a month later that they were engaged, and then they officially married less than a year after that. To be sure, the speed and lack of formality of the whole thing had given both sets of parents a ton of strife, but everyone had gotten over it by the time Amelia was born.

Much the same way she’d never made Will privy to the inner workings of her romantic life, he’d never made her privy to his either.

“No, we had it worse,” he grunted as he yanked a particularly rough weed. “She wasn’t even single when we met.”