Harder (Caroline & West #2)(40)

“She wouldn’t tell me.”

“Fuck.” I shove my hands in my pockets, rocking back on my heels. “I’ll see what I can do.”

“If you want me to try to talk to her, I could—”

“Let me deal with my own shit.”

I say it too harsh, then wish there was a way to take it back.

“God forbid anyone should try to help you with your shit, West.”

“I don’t see why you’d want to.”

“Yeah, so you’ve said. Forget it.”

“I’m trying.”

She shoots me a glare, which I deserve, and starts packing up her stuff. The light gleams in her hair. I soak up the green of her sweater, the way her jeans hug her ass.

I’m a dick.

I’m a dick for ogling Caroline’s ass, but mostly I’m a dick because I haven’t talked to Frankie. I don’t want to know what’s going on with the bus because I haven’t got an alternative. Either she takes the bus or I quit my job.

I should quit the job.

The hours are convenient, though, and the pay is good, so instead I’m a dick to Caroline, whose car my sister’s crying in.

I don’t know how to do this. Any of it. Not Frankie and school, not work and having a kid and keeping up with classes, not Caroline in my kitchen in the middle of the night trying to help me when I can’t hardly look at her without wanting to apologize to her or kiss her or both.

Most of the time, both.

I wind the new spare key off my key ring and hold it out. “So you can lock up.”

“Thanks.” She steps closer to take it. “Are you all right?”

I’m drowning. I’m exhausted. I miss you.

I’m such a f*cking mess, I feel like people can smell it on me—incompetent panic, guilt, worthlessness—and then she’s here, and I don’t get it.

I can’t make her leave.

I can’t figure out what to say.

“I’m fine.”

Caroline takes another step toward me.

I shove my hands into my back pockets and look at the floor, because if I don’t—

“All right,” she says.

All right.

After she leaves, I heat up lasagna in the microwave. I check the heat before I go to bed.

Even under the covers, I can’t seem to get warm.


At breakfast the next morning, Frankie tells me, “I need different clothes.”

“We just got you different clothes in September.”

“They don’t fit me anymore.”

I look her over, trying to figure out if that can possibly be true. It hasn’t even been two months, but maybe she’s changing without me noticing.

“What doesn’t fit, your pants? Shirts?”

“All of it.”

“You’ve got nothing that fits.”

She nods her agreement.

“This wouldn’t have anything to do with Caroline telling me you had a real shitty Halloween, would it?”

“No.”

“Because she says—”

“I just need new clothes,” Frankie insists. “I’m too fat for all the clothes you bought me.”

Then she dumps what’s left of her breakfast in the trash, sets the plate in the sink, and walks out.

I watch her go. Her pants fit just fine. The shirt’s maybe a little shorter than it was when we bought it? She’s got hips now. Boobs I try not to look at, because I can’t get used to them on my kid sister.

“Where do you want to go?” I call to her back.

“The thrift store.”

“I can buy you new clothes,” I say, exasperated. “It’s not a problem, only I’m trying to understand—”

“Just drive me to the thrift store, okay?”

“Fine.”

“Great.”

I have reading to plow through for Russian history first. Frankie spends the morning on the couch watching cartoons and drawing pictures of horses.

After lunch, we go shopping. She piles my arms high with jeans and sweatshirts. Everything she picks out is huge. Leggings she has to roll at the waistband, Putnam College hoodies that come down below her butt.

“This shit doesn’t fit you,” I say.

“You’re the one who’s always telling me my clothes are too slutty.”

“I never said that.”

“You said I couldn’t wear my costume without a coat over it.”

“That was a costume, not your clothes,” I tell her. “And it wasn’t your fault—all the costumes are like that now. I should’ve looked before we bought it.”

She pushes a sweatshirt into my arms. “This is what I want.”

I’m trying to make eye contact. Trying to connect with her. “If something’s going on with you at school, we should talk about it.”

“Nothing’s going on.”

“Don’t treat me like I’m dumb. You cry in Caroline’s car, you tell me out of the blue you need all new clothes that cover you up like a tent, something’s going on.”

“Why don’t you mind your own business?”

“Why don’t you tell me what happened at school?”