Page 141 of Between the Lines

“Are you upset?”

I exhale, closing my eyes as I pinch the bridge of my nose.

“I don’t know. I’m feeling a lot of things, and I don’t want any one to overwhelm the others right now.”

She nods slowly, her cheeks that carnival pink.

“If it makes you feel any better, shedidguess. I wasn’t having a heart to heart with her about it.”

She shrugs, and my chest constricts. Shouldn’t she beableto have heart to heart conversations with her girlfriends about her…

About her what, Nathan?

Therein lies the million dollar question.

What are we? And what will we become?

I sigh again, then reach out to cup Claire’s waist. My thumbs pass in errant strokes as a slow-moving tornado swirls around our feet, searching for momentum to latch onto.

“Can we maybe talk about it tonight? She has been sworn to secrecy. I promise,” Claire insists.

I tense.

Cal is in town. There’s a break with his residency program post-holiday, and he chose to come and visit. We’re having dinner, and I had planned to bring up the state of the house. I had honestly been banking on the secrecy with Claire’s roommate to cover for the fact that I amalsokeeping secrets.

“I have plans tonight. I’m sorry.”

“Oh. Right. No biggie.”

She tries to pull away, and I’m reminded of all of those times that a mere miscommunication had her doing the same. Just like that ride home from the shelter, when she’d thought that she had ruined the night. All it had taken to stop her from pulling away was to lay out my truth. I’ve always been good at reading between the lines when it comes to Claire, but I never want her to have to guess at my intentions.

Still, I can’t give her the full story. Not here in my office, when she deserves a platform for the whole truth and any questions she might have.

Besides, I’m still not quite ready for that.

I swallow around the lump in my throat that is partPenelope Barker knows your secretandClaire doesn’t know the whole truth.

“My brother is in town. We’re getting dinner, since he couldn’t come home for the holidays.”

Her eyes widen, and her body stiffens before it relaxes. I watch her expression tighten, her head tilting thoughtfully.

“Callahan?”

His name bounces off her tongue clunkily, like she’s testing it out for the first time. My chest loosens at the thought of my brother’s name being easy conversation between us one day.

“Yes. Since Cal had to work through Christmas, we’re having our holiday tonight.”

She nods, and my chest aches with the insistence that I justtell her.

Tell her about the way my life was upended when my parents died, and how I took care of my younger brother. Tell her about the financial situation we’re in, and how I’m struggling to put it all together.

Tell her about the guilt that has been slowly eating away at mysoul, the insistence to give Cal the best life possible because I stole his family from him when I insisted that my parents put me first and drive out in that snowstorm.

Tell her that she is the first person who has shown me that Icananddeserveto live the life that I still have left.

But the door buzzes with arrivals of staff coming in for the work day. This is not the time nor the place to have any of the harrowing conversations we’ve just dropped on one another.

I love my brother, and though itiswonderful to see him, I cannot shake the rocky feeling in the pit of my stomach.

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