Quin thanked goodness for the darkness as Paxton drove the last few blocks past houses she’d known from her childhood. But no matter how dark it was, she was still going to have to face the house—their house. And Ryla. And the great unspeakable thing.
Just as when she’d been younger and trying to avoid a problem, her world shifted to its most basic forms. Colors. Shapes. Abstract. If she tried to walk around, she would stumble because nothing looked real or tangible. She closed her eyes and forced that part of her brain on hold. There wasn’t time for art now.
Her arms felt heavier the closer they got and even the streetlights looked more familiar. Every other time she’d returned, this point in her journey would’ve been a breath of clean air. She could smell the salt of the sea and knew if she opened the windows, the sound of the waves would be evident, even from there. She’d fallen to sleep to that sound during summers long past.
Paxton pointed to a house as they passed it. “That’s where I live. If you ever need anything and I’m not at your sister’s house, just knock. I don’t have any other cases right now, so most likely I’ll be home.”
She nodded, listening because she had to. Paxton was the closest thing to support she’d have in the next week. What if Ryla let go while she was there? What would she do? Nothing in her past had prepared her for this.
Paxton pulled the car into the narrow driveway and parked. The two-story home was just across the street from the beach. The portion that other homes used as piers was a tuck under garage with open slats to allow for water flow in the case of hurricanes. Though they’d been lucky and had never lost anything to floodwaters.
“What do I say?” she mumbled, hoping she didn’t sound as completely out of her depth as she felt.
“How about… Hey, good to see you. Sorry it’s been so long.” He glanced at her and his eyes warmed slightly. Maybe he wasn’t being cruel, just protective of Ryla.
“I can do that, but it seems…disingenuous. I’d be hiding what I really want to say.”
He nodded, then opened his door to climb out. “The time for saying what you want has passed. It’s time to focus on her and making her comfortable. You’ve had a lot of years of you. You won’t have to keep this up for long.”
“You keep acting like I’ve tried to blot my sister out, but I never did. I love her.” Did Ryla really tell him her whole family was a bunch of losers who didn’t care about her? Even her parents, who were masters at being cold and distant, got love right sometimes.
He turned to face her, almost making her run into him. “Keep your voice down. Just in that one sentence alone, all you could think about was yourself. You’ll handle this whole situation better if you start thinking about her.”
Without anyone there to reach for, she’d thought she could rely on Paxton, but he wasn’t going to be a support. “I need my bag,” she mumbled again. Her voice didn’t seem to work and she hated whispering.
“I’ll bring it in when you guys are talking. Don’t worry about it.”
She wasn’t worried, just looking for something to stall this meeting. Specifically, this hello. Once they got past the greeting, the awkwardness, she’d be okay. Probably. A cigarette hadn’t touched her lips in five years, but she craved one just then and her two fingers pulsed for just a moment at the memory.
Keeping her footfalls light in case Ryla was asleep, she climbed the front steps and opened the door. From the back of the house, she heard a soft thump, thump, thump.
“Close the door, he’s going to make an escape!” Paxton forced his voice to a whisper from a few steps behind.
She rushed ahead and slammed the door hard enough to shake the rafters as Duggy lunged into the living room, ran to the center, and cocked his head slightly to eye her. Bunnies were supposed to be adorable, fluffy, sweet creatures, but Duggy was like a pit bull in bunny form. He chittered at her and it sounded roughly like she was being cursed out. Then he thumped the floor loudly and ran off.
The door opened just slightly. “Is he gone?”
She would’ve answered except a figure, thin and pale, appeared in the doorway. Ryla seemed to have lost half her hair and all of her will. “Yes, Paxton. Duggy went back down the hall.” Even Ryla’s voice seemed to have given up on life.
The door swung open and Paxton immediately went to help her finish her trek into the room. He got her settled and comfortable as Quin went to close the door in case Duggy decided to sneak back into the room.
“Quin. So good to see you again.” Even though the words were breathy and frail, she could feel the meaning and heart behind them.
“It’s…good to see you too.” She tried to infuse her own voice with that love she kept claiming she felt. The task was a lot harder than she thought it would be to pull off without bursting into tears.
“Sit. Talk with me. I’m afraid I laid down for a nap a few hours ago and lost track of time. I’m as awake as can be.”
Quin curled herself into a chair nearby and reached for her sister’s hand. At first, because she needed comfort, but then wanting to give it too. “I should’ve come sooner.”
Ryla squeezed softly. “You’re here now. It’s going to be fine. You’ll see.” She smiled in her distant sort of way. “I had Paxton do some shopping, but I wasn’t sure what you eat anymore.”
Two years before, she’d gone strictly vegan, but that had only lasted until she started having issues with her blood pressure and found she was very low in iron. Her doctor had said she could take supplements, but meat was the easiest way to get it, so she’d gone back to her regular diet. “I’m sure I’ll be fine with whatever he chose.”
“So you don’t eat rabbit food anymore?” Ryla grinned.
Quin held back a wince. Even her sister’s mouth seemed tired. “I’ll eat rabbit food if that’s what you told Paxton to get for me.”
Paxton turned to her slightly from his spot kneeling in front of Ryla. She hadn’t noticed he was doing something with her feet. He was so quiet when he wanted to be. “I promise it’s not what Duggy eats. Despite how good hay smells, it doesn’t seem like something to feed a guest.”
She found herself temporarily mesmerized by the slow, rhythmic movements of Paxton’s hands over Ryla’s feet. “Duggy has certainly become more…wild since I was here last.”
“He’s my best buddy.” Ryla patted the arm of the chair twice sharply and Duggy thumped down the hall again, then sat in the doorway. He stood on his back feet and searched the room until his little chocolate gaze landed on Quin. Then he dashed off out of the room.
“He doesn’t seem to like you.” Paxton laughed as he gently pulled Ryla’s sock back on.
“Bunnies are prey animals. They read people really well,” Ryla offered, then glanced at Quin. “Sorry.”
Quin shrugged. She’d never really cared for the rabbit. There had never been an animal in her life that she’d connected with. “I can’t have pets in my apartment, so not bonding with animals isn’t really a hardship.”
“Oh, that’s too bad.” Ryla folded her hands in her lap. “Because I need someone to eventually take him. I wanted you to be that person.”
Take Duggy? The bunny with more personality than her boyfriend? “He’d escape my apartment on the first day and get lost in Manhattan. I would be terrified to have him there.”
“Then stay here. It won’t be hard. You’ll see.”
Ryla kept saying that and maybe it was because she’d already faced dragons and slain them, but that wasn’t Quin’s state of mind. “I don’t know that I’ll see anything.” She wasn’t handling the first fifteen minutes well, and the next fifteen weren’t looking any better.
Paxton stood and laid a hand on Ryla’s shoulder. “I’m going to go out and get Quin’s bag, then I’m going home to sleep. See you bright and early.”
She smiled up at him. “Thank you for everything.”
Quin bit her lip. She hadn’t thanked him for the ride or the pep talk on the way. If he hadn’t told her, she’d have seen Ryla for the first time and probably had a fit. He was right, she wouldn’t have handled that well. She’d gone into the situation with knowledge because of him. “Yes, thanks. I don’t think I could’ve driven this late. I really appreciate it.”
His lips turned up slightly in appreciation of her words and then he was gone, leaving her to carry the conversation with Ryla.
“How was your flight? You said you had a delay?” Ryla’s huge blue eyes met hers in honest curiosity.
“Yeah, the plane they’d scheduled didn’t pass some inspection and they had to find another plane. But, here I am.” She shrugged, trying to sound excited though she only managed to sound snarky.
“He told you.” She sighed. “He wasn’t supposed to. I wanted to be able to tell you in my own way. Even as much as he knows me, he still doesn’t get that all I want is one last normal thing.”
Quin couldn’t bite her tongue hard enough to keep her thoughts to herself. “The time for normal is gone. I would’ve known there was a problem the moment I saw you. I am sorry for taking so long. If I’d come two months ago, maybe then...”
Ryla slowly nodded. “Two months ago might have been enough. Life hasn’t really been normal since my heart attack. The one that did so much damage that they can’t fix it. I have a pacemaker right now that’s pretty much keeping me alive. If that shuts off or shorts out…or if I have another heart attack…they tell me I probably won’t make it through even another small one.”
“Why didn’t you tell us? You’ve been going through the scariest thing imaginable and you didn’t tell us, reach out…? Why?” Of all the questions in her mind, that was the strongest.
“My whole life I’ve been taught not to upset the apple cart. If I have any issues, they aren’t as bad as others. No one ever taught me where that line was…when do my problems become important? Obviously, at some point I crossed the line, but I still don’t want to tell Mom and Dad. I didn’t even really want you here after my heart attack. Paxton forced me to keep pestering you.”
That explained the sudden drop in texts. She hadn’t wanted to make them at all. “I’ll have to thank Paxton again. Do you have any idea how terrifying it was to hear from him what’s been going on? Mom and Dad will freak.”
“But you won’t tell them because I’ve asked you not to. I’m not having them step in and try to change my directives. And don’t lecture me. I don’t need to hear, yet again, how I’ve handled something wrong in your eyes. Can’t you for once take a backseat and just listen and be here for me? Is that too much to ask?”
Ryla was the youngest, and in most families, she would’ve been the spoiled one. Throughout her whole life, Quin had always seen their parents as treating both of them equally. If Quin got new clothes, so did Ryla. If Ryla got to go out to eat alone with Mom, Quin got to go the following week. Everything was fair, wasn’t it?
“I don’t know what you mean, ‘take a backseat?’”
“I mean, for once in your life, stop being the star and just be my sister.”
There was nothing to say in rebuttal. She’d lived her life the way she was raised to live it. What would it take to put her sister first for a little while? “I’ll do my best.”
Ryla closed her eyes and sighed heavily. “According to the world, that’s pretty amazing.” Quin closed herself off from her sister’s obvious pain for a moment. Asking her to both be a normal sister and mentioning her status was too much to deal with. Ryla had no idea what it was like to live Quin’s life.