Page 111 of Jesse's Girl

She lets go and steps back. “Sorry, Garby.”

“Wow. It’s been ages since anyone called me Garby,” I say with a chuckle, glancing past my sister to where Sam and Hazel sit at the coffee table with paper and colored pencils dumped everywhere. My chest twinges at how much bigger they are. Claire and her husband brought them both out to see me a couple years ago in Australia, but they were too young to remember. Hazel was just a baby.

“Garby?” Ada’s amused voice comes from over my shoulder. “There’s gotta be a story behind that.”

I’m relieved to hear a glimmer of Ada’s usual sense of humor returning. The ride over from the art school was… tense.

“Claire, you remember Ada? Uh…” I pause, not sure what to call her. My roommate? Friend? Fuck-buddy? “Marcus’ sister?”

“Oh, wow, yes! Hey!” Claire beams, taking Ada in. “Long time no see! And Garby’s short for Garbage Mouth.”

“Claire—” I start, rubbing my forehead with my fingertips.

This is what we’re leading with?

“Garbage Mouth?” Ada repeats, smirking at me. “What, did you swear a lot as a kid, or…?”

Claire slips her arms around my waist again and gazes up at me—somehow still managing to serve big sister vibes even though she’s six inches shorter than I am. “When he was a toddler, I found him picking through the trash and putting stuff in his mouth. So, being the creative genius big sister that I was, I started calling him Garbage Mouth, and it just… morphed into Garby.” She shrugs. “He was always putting the weirdest stuff in his mouth. Mom and Dad had to call poison control twice after he ate snowberries.”

“Uh,”—I scoff—“because you fed me snowberries, Claire.” The attempted murder is canon in our family.

“Accidentally! The first time, at least.” She throws Ada a guilty glance. “I swear, I didn’t want him to die, but, you know, little brothers…”

I shake my head. I’m never gonna hear the end of this Garby thing.

“Yeah,” Ada says. “Younger siblings are the worst.”

I let out a wry laugh. “Well, Marcus would probably agree with you there.”

“Come on in,” Claire says, gesturing for us to follow her inside.

As Ada steps past me, I reach out to tug discreetly on the hem of her shirt.

She turns, cautious eyes jumping up to mine.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper.

Before she turns away, she holds my gaze for a moment and nods, giving me a small smile. “I know.”

And damn if that smile doesn’t patch up some bruised part of my heart. I let a tiny swell of relief take root in my chest; I know we still need to talk about what happened, but that look tells me we’re okay.

I trail Claire and Ada into the living room and tentatively squat down beside Hazel. “Hey,” I start, not sure what to say. “Whatcha drawing?”

Hazel peers up at me from under dark brown, frizzy curls. “Dis guy’s a monkey. And him’s got rainbows.” A series of colorful scribbles cover the paper.

“Wow! A rainbow monkey? Sweet.” I inspect the paper in front of Sam. “What about you, bud?”

“A dragon,” he says quietly.

Claire sweeps over to crouch down beside him, softly rubbing his shoulder. “Sam, do you remember Uncle Jesse?”

Sam gives her a shy shrug.

Claire continues, “We went to visit him in Australia a couple years ago, when you were three. About how old Hazel is now.”

“It’s okay if you don’t remember,” I reassure him. “I don’t remember anything from when I was three.”

God, it must be weird for them—to barely know me and yet be told I’m family.

---