“Kyle!” She slaps my chest and I laugh. I love winding her up.
“What?”
“Pig.”
“Eh, it’s better than jerk.”
Her legs tighten. “Do we have to go there again?”
I wish we didn’t. “As much as I hate talking about the pricks you’ve been spending nights with, yes.”
“In case you’ve forgotten, I haven’t spent the night with anyone except your sister since you came home.”
I turn to face her. I know my face is like stone – my jaw is tight. “I should f**king hope not. But it’s not the only problem,” my voice softens at the end.
She draws in a sharp breath and her eyes shoot daggers at me. “You’ve been speaking to my parents.”
I’m not saying anything. She knows it’s true. No point confirming or denying it.
“I can’t believe this.” She pulls her legs up and moves to the other side of the sectional.
“I spoke to them because I wanted to know.”
“Then talk to me instead!”
“I’ve tried. Every time you tell me to f**k off because you don’t care. Well here’s some news for you, Rox, I care!”
She shakes her head. “Because you always want to talk about Cam. I’ve done that, okay? I’ve done what you wanted when you did. The memories, the movie night… I can’t take any more than that.”
“Fine. No talking about Cam. Will you talk now?”
Nothing. She says nothing. I climb up on the sofa next to her and grab her hands.
“There’s nothing to talk about,” she says weakly.
“Besides the drinking and drugs.”
“I hardly use drugs.”
“Hardly isn’t good enough. It should be f**king never, Rox. Never.”
She takes her hands from mine and runs them through her hair. “There’s no way to talk about this without bringing him up, is there?”
“Looks like you have to pull on some big girl panties and get the hell on with it, then.”
“I’m not—”
“Seven months,” I interrupt her. “Seven months and you still can’t talk about it? I’m not expert on grief but you’re taking the piss. You don’t want to talk about him. There’s a damn big difference between can’t and won’t.”
“I was there the moment he died. Of course I won’t talk about it. I don’t want to remember that moment.”
“If anyone had to be there it should have been you. You were the love of his life. In his eyes no one even came close to his baby sister. But you’re not the Roxy he loved.” Her heart is breaking in her eyes and I hate I’m the person doing this to her. But she has to listen. I need to talk her down from her games. I’m probably going about it all wrong, but it’s hard to substitute what I want to say with what’s right to say. “The Roxy he loved never would have done everything you have since he died. She would have been there with her parents, getting through it together.”
“The Roxy he loved died when he did.”
“Bullshit. She’s still in there. I see her when you’re with me. When it’s just us, she’s there. Now this is the new Roxy – the person you think you want to be. She lives for nothing but all the shit you’re destroying yourself with.”
She stands. “Destroying myself?”
I look up at her. “You are, aren’t you? How many nights can’t you remember? How many names of guys do you know? How much can you drink in one go?”
“That’s nothing to do with you.”
“Yeah it is. It’s everything to do with me.”
“You’re not my brother!”
My eyes flick to her lips and back to her eyes. “Obviously I’m nothing close to your brother.”
Her eyes harden. “And it makes sense.” She turns and walks from the room.
“Wait. What makes sense?” I jump up from the sofa and go after her. “Roxy!”
She stops at the door, her head down, her fingers holding tightly to the handle. “Everything since you’ve been back. Taking me from the parties, taking me to the gorge, holding me when I cried… kissing me… I get it.”
“I’m glad you get it. I don’t.”
The door opens forcefully. “Everything was to stop me destroying myself, wasn’t it? It was for my parents and for the promise you made Cam.”
I stare at her in disbelief in as she walks to her car. “Not true. Not one damn bit, Roxy.”
She opens her car door and looks at me. “We both know it’s true.” She gets in the car and starts the engine.
“Roxy!” I step outside when she pulls away. “Roxy!”
Her car disappears and Scamp yaps inside. I shut the door and lean against it.
How can she really think that? How can she think everything was for everyone else?
And I get it. I get what she thinks.
I spoke to her parents. I made a promise to her brother to always look out for her. Now I am, and she doesn’t think I actually care about her the way I do. She thinks the week since she demanded I kiss her has all been a bunch of crap.
And when she looked at me just then, before she got in the car. When she looked at me her eyes weren’t shining in anger. They were shining because she was crying. The last week has been as real to her as it has to me.
I’m shoved away as the door opens.
“Okay so Roxy just flew out of here like her ass was on fire and you’re standing with a face like a smacked one. What the hell happened in the twenty minutes I’ve been gone?” Iz kicks a toy toward the dog and stares at me.
Fuck.
I rub my hands down my face and look at my sister. Concern is glaring from her eyes.
“I f**ked up, Iz. I f**ked up royally.”
Chapter Fifteen – Roxy
Everything. Everything has been a great big lie to him and now I don’t know who my heart hurts more for. Cam or Kyle. I don’t know whether it hurts more for the love lost or the one never had. I don’t know which it’s supposed to hurt more for.
My mouth is dry and my head is banging. I went straight to Layla’s after leaving Kyle’s yesterday and a part of me regrets it when I think of him. Until I remember he cares only because he’s obligated to. Because he promised he would.
But it felt so real. Every touch and every kiss from him felt as real as the ones I gave. There was that twinkle in our eyes with every smile we shared. Maybe I should have told him the reason I haven’t been with anyone since he got home isn’t because he stopped me, rather because the only person I want to be with is him. Maybe it wouldn’t have made a difference.