Unbreak My Heart(18)

She squeezes my fingers. She’s doing a terrible job of not taking advantage of me. I loop mine tighter around hers. Even holding her hand turns me on.

She meets my eyes. “I know, but it’s going to do a number on me.”

“Is it against the nurses’ code?”

With her free hand, she taps her chest. “It’s against my code.”

“You weren’t against it last night.” Damn, I am going to be one fine attorney after all, especially when it involves negotiating the prospect of nudity.

“It’s hard for me to think straight when you touch me,” she whispers.

This doesn’t make anything easier. She’s making everything harder. “Are you asking me to be the strong one?”

A guilty little smile is her answer. “Maybe I am.”

“You’re fighting a losing battle, but I’ll do my best. But let me give you a tip.”

She arches a brow in question.

“Maybe if you want me to be the strong one, you ought to let go of my hand.”

She drops her hold on me. “I didn’t realize I was holding your hand. It feels so normal. That’s the thing. That’s the challenge.”

Touching me is her normal.

I’m not strong enough to be the strong one, but I’m greedy enough to pretend that I will be, and it feels good.

For the first time in weeks, I feel . . . lighter.

“Let’s get out of town.”





12





Holland



I roll my clothes, lining up the fabric in little tubes.

London grabs a red shirt, scrunching it even tighter. “You can fit even more.”

“I know,” I say, working my packing magic with my sister. “But I don’t want to exceed the weight limit.”

With her light-blue eyes, she scans my bag. “I’m betting it’s under fifty pounds by a hair.”

“Only one way to find out.”

My little sister—two years younger than my twenty-five—scurries out of the bedroom and snags the scale from the bathroom. Setting it down on the floor, she hauls the suitcase on it.

She thrusts her arms in the air in victory. “Forty-nine-point-nine.” Shimmying her hips, she sings, “I’ve still got it.”

“I hope you have it for a long, long time.”

London is a flight attendant, based here but traveling to Asia often, so my parents and I see her a lot. Packing is in her blood. She’s said to me before, “I’ve never met a suitcase I couldn’t pack better.”

London looks at her watch. “I need to take off. I have a pickup. I hardly ever get the Europe routes, but this time I’m going to Amsterdam.”

“Lucky you.” That’s her favorite city.

She says it makes her feel closer to me when she travels there. I tease her and tell her the same about all of England. If we’d had another sibling, we joke she’d have been named Vienna, and then we’d agree how lucky we are not to have been conceived in Prague or Portugal, or Kyoto and Tokyo for that matter.

She turns around, but when she reaches the doorway, she stops and looks over her shoulder at me. “Are you really doing this?”

“I am. I have a new job. I have my apartment still in Tokyo—I rented it out on Airbnb the last month, but the renters are done, so I still have my place.”

“I’m not talking about your apartment, for God’s sake.”

“Then what are you talking about?”

She sighs and comes back to me. “I’m talking about him. Be careful.”

I shoot her a quizzical look. “Why do you say that?”

“Because you think you can save him.”

I scoff. “I don’t think that.”

But I want to—to save him from all his heartache.

“You’ve wanted to save the entire world ever since you took care of Grandpa.”

“No,” I protest. “That’s just when I knew I wanted to be a nurse.”

“To you, it’s one and the same.”

I swallow hard. “But what’s so wrong with that? It’s who I am.”

I’ve known since I was twelve what I wanted to do with my life. I’ve known since I watched my dad’s father forget how to find the grocery store, what year it was, then his own son’s name.

I’ve known it since I took care of my grandpa, making his oatmeal, reminding him who I was, playing Candy Land when everything else became too hard. Then Go Fish when Candy Land became calculus to him.

A lump rises in my throat. There hasn’t been a time in my life when I didn’t want to help. It’s a cellular thing for me, and I can’t escape from it.

London clasps my shoulder. “I don’t want you thinking you can nurse your ex-boyfriend back to happy.”

“I’m not trying to be his nurse.”

“You were definitely playing the nurse with his brother.”

I stare at her. “That’s not fair. I wasn’t playing anything. I was. I was there the last week of his life, giving him comfort care. I watched him take his last breath. Don’t tell me I was playing,” I say, my voice rising with my anger. “There was nothing pretend about that.”