Page 27 of It’s Me, but Different

Suddenly, we fall into an uncomfortable silence. Anika and River glance at each other occasionally while the steam keeps rising, creating a mist that makes me feel like we're in another world.

“Esme,” River says finally, “can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“What do you really feel for my sister?”

The question catches me completely off guard.

“I don't know,” I admit with a long sigh. “I mean… yes, I do. I still feel a lot for her. Too much. Much more than I should feel after eleven years, especially after how things ended between us.”

“Have you considered giving her a second chance?” she insists. “Trying something together?”

“For a moment, yes,” I confess, and saying it out loud hurts much more than I expected. “The dinner at The Peak and later, spending the night together after the storm. The sunrise. All of that awakened sensations in me I thought were forgotten. Last night, at the bar, we talked for a while. I hoped that... well, I hoped she'd fight for me. A little, at least. That she'd try to convince me to stay. But she didn't. Nothing. Not even a little bit.”

“And what does that mean to you?” Anika asks, lowering her voice to almost a whisper above the water's splashing.

“That she hasn't matured enough. That she's still the same Sloane from eleven years ago, the one who doesn't want to complicate her life,” I respond with a sting of bitterness. “My job is in Colorado. My children's entire life is there. Yes, it's difficult, but if she really wanted to try, she would have fought somehow, don't you think? I can thinkof a thousand things she could have done... and she did nothing.”

River exchanges a look with Anika that doesn't go unnoticed.

“What's happening now?” I ask angrily. “Is there something I should know?”

“My sister is an idiot,” River admits with a sigh. “She has a hard time channeling feelings. She always has.”

“I already know that; it's nothing new. Still…”

“Esme,” she interrupts, “I'm going to tell you something that almost no one knows. And I ask you please not to comment on it.”

I lean forward, intrigued.

“When Sloane got injured before the World Cup and her sports career went to hell, she fell into a very deep depression. So deep we were afraid she'd do something stupid.”

“What do you mean?” I sigh, though I don't want to know the answer.

“She was so down that she barely left her room. She didn't eat, didn't talk to anyone. Fuck, sometimes she'd go a week without showering. We all thought it was because her career as a skier was over,” River takes a brief pause, as if saying the next words costs her a lot of effort. “But during therapy we discovered it was something else. At that moment she understood she had let go of the person she hadloved more than anything in the world. And all for a sports dream that was over.”

“And that person was…?”

“You, Esme. That person was you.”

I run my hands through my hair, not knowing what to say. Suddenly, the water temperature feels overwhelming.

“Since then she misses you in a way you can't even imagine and regrets every day letting you go,” her sister continues. “Sloane has never been truly happy. She just survives. In eleven years, she still hasn't gotten over it.”

“It's true,” Anika confirms. “Last year, when she came to visit me in San Francisco, she spent the whole night talking about you. About how she had ruined the best thing that had happened to her in life. And that was supposedly when she came to console me.”

“I don't understand,” I whisper. “If she regrets it so much, why last night...?”

“Because she's an idiot,” River responds. “And because she's scared. Scared you'll reject her. Scared of hurting you again. Scared her feelings aren't reciprocated. I don't know, she was always a little weird, no offense.”

“Reciprocated?” I can't help but let out a bitter laugh. “How can she think they're not reciprocated? Fuck, we almost slept together at The Peak.”

“Oh, really?” River asks, arching an eyebrow. “You hadn't told me that. Neither had Sloane.”

“River...” Anika warns, giving her a light elbow to the ribs.

“What? She's my sister. I already told you, that restaurant has a strange effect on people. You stay there alone, and suddenly you feel like… you know…” she jokes, making a gesture with her fingers, and I can't help but smile.