Quinn gripped the textured vinyl in her hands, yanking the shower curtain open in one expeditive swoop. Astrid hopped back, her feet sliding across the slickness of the tub’s bottom as her hands grappled to balance themselves against the tiled side wall beside her.
“What the hell, Quinn? Close the curtain. It’s freezing!”
“Why couldn’t you just leave it alone?”
Astrid dipped her hair under the running water, combing the conditioner out with her fingers. Eyes shut, she reached down, twisted the shower knob to the right. She stepped out, squished her toes into the shag rug beneath her, and bent over, whipping a blue towel off the rack. “I knew you wouldn’t say anything, and I thought they needed to know.”
“Why? So they could panic, fear for their daughter’s life? Is this the new you, Astrid? You’ve decided to go from not giving a shit to being overprotective?”
“You need to calm down, Quinn.”
“And you need to learn to mind your own business.”
Astrid circled the towel around herself, attempted to push her way past Quinn. Quinn stabbed two fingers onto Astrid’s chest like they were skewers, forcing her back against the wall. “I’m not done talking to you.”
Astrid raised both hands. “First you don’t want to talk to me, and now you’re dying to. Can I at least put some clothes on—”
“Stay out of my life, Astrid. Just leave me alone. You’ve done it for years now. It shouldn’t be hard to do it again.”
Quinn lifted her fingers off Astrid’s chest, leaned back on the bathroom cabinet.
Astrid remained glued to the wall, staring at Quinn like she questioned whether the clear path she now had out of the bathroom was some kind of trap. “I’m worried. Okay? You shouldn’t be out there trying to do the cops’ job yourself.”
“You are worried about me? Since when? Since two days ago? Because three days ago you couldn’t have cared less.”
“That’s not true. I didn’t think you needed me before. But I feel like you need me now. I never thought I’d have the chance to make things up to you.”
“Make what up to me?” Quinn asked.
“What I did.”
“Is that why you ran to Mom and Dad, feigning your concern?”
Astrid placed her hands on her hips. “I did what I thought was best. And, I have no idea what the word feigning even means.”
Quinn looked at her sister, really looked at her—at the way she nibbled her lower lip, the way her eyes were distant and empty. Like she was lost. “Can we just try to get along for whatever amount of time you decide to squat here? If not for ourselves, at least for Mom and Dad. They don’t deserve to see us fight.”
“We’ll never get past this, the way we’re treating each other right now, until we make peace with the past. And you’re not interested. You’ve said so a few times.”
“Less than two weeks ago my life was ordinary. The same. Day in, day out. The highlight of each day was deciding what new dish I was going to prepare for dinner. Can you believe it? I don’t even like to cook. I’ve lived in denial for so long, that all of this, everything that’s happening right now, all crashing down on me at the same time—it’s overwhelming. I can barely soak one thing in, and yet, I find myself feeling drenched.”
“Turn around.”
“What?”
Astrid placed her hands on Quinn’s shoulders, spun her around so they both faced the mirror. “Look at my reflection. What do you see?”
“This is ridiculous,” Quinn said.
“What do you see?”
“You. Me.”
“Wanna know what I see in myself? I see someone who has the ability to be soft, but is hard instead. Someone who could be kind, but knows how much easier it is to close herself off, so she does. Someone most people see as a bitch. A person who’s spent the last several years blaming everything that’s happened to her on everyone else.”
“Astrid, you don’t need to—”
“No, Quinn. I’m being honest for once. Now it’s your turn. What do you see in yourself?”
“I see ... I don’t know what I see.”
“Mind if I weigh in?”
“Depends.”
“The last time I saw you, your face was gray and ashy. Look at it now. Rosy and full of life. Even though you’re grieving for Evie, you look different, Quinn. You look alive. Like someone dumped some water into your pot and is giving you the chance to bloom again. It’s okay to be raw and exposed. And it’s okay to let Isaiah go now, to give yourself another chance to live.”
Quinn braced her hands against the sides of the counter, fought back the emotions growing inside her. “I just miss him. Every day. It still hurts so much, you know?”
“I know. And it’s all my fault. This is why I’ve stayed away. I knew what I’d done to you. When I stopped being angry, I had no idea how to fix it. So I didn’t. You thought I didn’t care about being in your life, and I knew I couldn’t until I told you what happened.”
“I wouldn’t have had Isaiah any other way, so one good thing came out of it.”
“I’ve, ahh ... never told you this before, but I sent flowers to his grave.”
“Really, when?”
“On the first Friday of every month.”
“That was you? I always thought one of Marcus’s sisters sent them.”
“I thought it was best to remain anonymous at the time.”
“No matter what our differences are, it means a lot to me, Astrid. I mean it.”
“If you really want to thank me, you’d let me explain why I did what I did to you. Please, Quinn. I’ll even give you the short version.”
If there was ever a time to hear it, a moment when the two of them were getting along, this was it. “I’ll try.”
Astrid paused a moment. “When I was in the ninth grade, the basketball coach assigned some of the older high school boys to practice with a few of us. He thought it would up our game, help us learn how to be more aggressive. Bo was assigned to me.”
“I remember.”
“He was so kind and playful and fun. He treated me different than the other guys did. I didn’t feel like some dumb kid when I was with him. I felt like a woman. We practiced together for weeks. Most of the time, Dad came to the gym to pick me up, but one time, he was busy, so you did. Do you remember?”
“I don’t.”
“You met Bo that day.”
“I knew him already.”
“Yeah, in passing, maybe. When you picked me up, the two of you talked. The day you don’t remember is the day I finally snapped.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I loved Bo. At least, I loved him as much as a freshman could love a guy at age fourteen. I thought he felt the same about me—until he saw you—and then it was like he didn’t see me anymore. He only saw you. Only talked about you.”
“And you became jealous.”
Astrid nodded. “I’m sorry. I hated you for it. You could have dated any guy you wanted. To me, it was like you stole him away from me.”
“I never knew you had those feelings for him. How could I? You never told me.”
“It wouldn’t have made a difference. He loved you, and you loved him, and I was brushed to the side. I was young. And heartbroken. And stupid. Really stupid.”
“You toyed with our lives that night without giving a second thought to the consequences. What you did, Astrid, it was cruel.”
Astrid pressed a hand to her hip. “Cruel? If it had been the first time you’d snatched a guy away from me, maybe. It wasn’t. It was the third.”
“The third?”
“Trevor Fallon then Allan Willis then Bo.”
“Astrid, none of those guys were ever your boyfriends. It wasn’t like I went after them deliberately. I wasn’t trying to hurt you. How could I if I wasn’t aware of your feelings in the first place?”
“Somehow I convinced myself you knew what you were doing, that you kept going after the same guys I liked for a reason.”
“What reason?”
Astrid shrugged. “I don’t know. To show me you could, to show me you were better than me.”
“Better than you? When have we ever been in competition with each other?”
Astrid opened the bathroom door, stepped into the hall, turned back. “Like I said, I don’t ever expect you to forgive me. You can go on hating me forever if you want. At least now you know.”