Page 19 of Wherever You Are

I know.

“You called Mitchell, didn’t you?” It’s the only thing that makes sense. I remember the look Mitchell had in the greenhouse, right before I left. How he was staring faraway. Like something clicked in his head.

He’s sorry.

I rub my dripping nose.

Letting me go is Mitchell’s way of protecting me from our other two brothers.

“What is he—the nice one?” Lo asks.

“Mitchell could’ve stopped them,” I mutter. He’s closest in age to me. Two years older. “He never did. Does that make him nice?” I shake my head. “…I don’t know. I never stopped my friends from breaking into your house. I never stoppedmyselffrom pranking you. We’re all the same. We’re allshit.” He needs to remember who he’s inviting into his home. I’m not a good guy. Doesn’t he remember?

Lo leans forward, and with utter conviction, he says, “This guy in front of me isn’t shit, and I’ll still be here when you finally believe it too.”

I inhale like I haven’t taken a full breath in all my life.

I was wrong about my family—how I can’t trade them in.

They may be blood, but they’re not mine anymore.

I can choose my family. Lo gave me that option.

And I choose this one.

4PRESENT DAY – January

London, England

WILLOW HALE

Age 20

“Lo told me I could pick any room in the house that I wanted with one exception,” Garrison explains as he folds clothes into a new dresser. I watch him on Skype. Boxes surround him, and computer monitors and cords litter the queen-sized bed.

Before he officially accepted Lo’s offer, he called to ask if the whole thing was a bad idea. He wanted to make sure that I was on board.

My boyfriend moving into my brother’s house.

In Garrison’s words:“If you become unhappy in our relationship and this makes it harder for you to break up with me—then I won’t do it.”

He’s always thinking about me, in most everything. Even in some strange reality where I’d break up with him, he thinks about me. By the way, that’s a reality that I refuse to believe will ever come true.

During the same phone call, Garrison spilled everything about his brothers. How they hurt him during the holidays and then again in the greenhouse. How his mom did nothing.

It gutted me, but I tried to stay strong over the line for him. Towards the end, we were both crying. I wish I could’ve been there.

With him.

His drunken anger in London made more sense, and guilt gnawed at me for not flying home with him that night. Garrison said he wouldn’t have wanted me to, but I’ll regret it forever.

“I regret a lot,” I told him on the phone, wiping at my tears. “I could’ve confronted your mom or told Lo sooner—”

“No,” Garrison forced out. “We were teenagers.”

“I’m not a teenager anymore.”

I could hear his tears and cracking voice. “What happened isn’t on you, Willow. You left everything you knew to come to Philly. And you came here to meet your brother. Saving me wasn’t your job. It’smine.And you know how many times I wanted to confrontyourmom but never did?”