Left Drowning(55)

I snatch the Kindle that I treated myself to for Christmas and occupy my busy mind with news stories and downloading books. Without a social life here, I’ll certainly have plenty of time to read over break. I already miss the Shepherd crew, but I am going to lean on myself and feel good about it.

I am ten chapters into my book when I hear the front door being unlocked. It’s amazing somehow that we both still have our house keys. I force myself to stay on the couch because I know that the last thing I should do is swoop over to James and make a scene.

My brother practically falls into the living room, weighed down by three mammoth duffel bags. He lets them fall to the floor and stands up. “Hey,” he says.

I take him in. He looks the same as he did four and a half months ago—I know that rationally—but at the same time, he looks incredible. I see the little kid who let me stand on the back of his tricycle, the one who used to beg me to throw him from the dock into the ocean, and the one who blew us all away with his incredible athletic prowess and the equal level of modesty that went along with that. Cheering and screaming at his games always caused him huge embarrassment, but that’s what parents and a sister are for. Or were for.

As I look at him, though, for a moment I also see the boy who is lying in a pool of blood outside a burning house. But I will not go there now.

“Hey, back.” I set down my Kindle and focus on how healthy and handsome he looks. He’s let his light-brown hair grow out a bit and it suits him, although I nonetheless have the maternal instinct to brush it off his face so that I can see his blue eyes. The sleek brown leather coat and jeans he has on hug his frame, and I can see that he is in as good shape as ever. “How was your flight? No delays out of Boulder?”

“No, it was all fine. Except that I’m starving. Should we order something?” He stands in the center of the room with his hands in his pockets.

“No, I’ve got dinner on the stove.” I eye his luggage. “Laundry?”

“Oh. Yeah. I’ll start it tomorrow.”

I walk over to his bags, and my feet sink reassuringly into the carpet in just the way they always have. “No problem. I got it. You want to shower or anything before we eat?”

“That … would be good. Thanks.” Now that I am near him, he gives me a half hug as I’m bending down to pick up a bag. “Holy shit, Blythe!”

“What?” I ask, somewhat alarmed.

“You look … really good. God, you’re so skinny.” He pushes me away and assesses me. “Wait. Are you okay?”

I smile softly. “I’m fine. I’ve been running, so I’ve lost some weight.”

“You totally have. And you’re sort of muscly, and toned, and shit. But it’s more than that. Did you change your hair or something? And you’re kind of … I don’t know. Glowy.”

“I can assure you that I’m not pregnant, if that’s what you mean.”

He laughs. God, I’ve missed that sound. “I didn’t mean it like that. You look good. Really … pretty.”

It’s a bit unnerving how surprised he sounds. I don’t think I’m any particular beauty now, so I must have been pretty awful looking these past few years. “I’m going to start a load. Towels are in the bathroom for you, and there are clothes from stupid Lisa’s on your bed. No rush. We can eat whenever you want.”

James looks sort of dumbfounded. Exactly what I was hoping for. Admittedly, I am showing off a bit. Look at me! I’m functional! And not pudgy! It’s important to me that James sees that I am trying.

“Yeah, okay. I won’t take long.”

We eat dinner and I ask him a hundred questions about school, about his girlfriend, about music he’s listening to. Anything that I can think of. I want to know my brother again, but I try to keep the conversation casual. Not once do I mention anything that could conceivably be construed as depressing. James is—I can hardly believe it—responsive. He even asks me about my life. It occurs to me in a rather schmaltzy manner that he may have been “saved by a good woman.” This girlfriend of his is probably showing him love and stability, both of which he needs and both of which I have not been able to give him.

Until now.

The next evening we go to Lani and Tim’s party. Lani hugs me so tightly that I nearly lose my breath, and it’s wonderful. James flirts, I can’t help noticing, with anyone vaguely close to his age, and the girls love it. I eat fancy hors d’oeuvres and drink one glass of champagne. I sing wretched, awful Christmas carols at the top of my lungs. I speak to my high school pal Nichole for about thirty minutes. There is no discussion of dead parents or my catatonic state during our senior year of high school, and we exchange phone numbers. Next summer, after graduation, she is planning on interning at a Boston-based online magazine that reports on all things New England and thinks I should try for a position as well.

The night is pretty f*cking magical.

I’m very aware of how well I am operating in situations that I would have been incapable of broaching even last summer. Chris, Sabin, Eric, and Estelle have rescued me, and I can’t fathom how I can ever begin to repay them.

James acts like he hates it, but I make him get into bed before midnight because when we were growing up, we were required to be in bed while it was still Christmas Eve and not one minute into Christmas. It was some weird ritual that my parents had. I did, for one minuscule second, have the thought that James and I should go to midnight mass tonight—an exception my parents occasionally made to their rule—but I dismiss it. I may be pushing it, but I actually get James to tolerate my making a big show of tucking him in and giving a mock lecture about how Christmas will be ruined if he so much as gets up to go to the bathroom. He rolls his eyes and smiles at me, which I think is fantastic, and demands to know why I am not in bed, too.