Page 142 of Between the Lines

It took Claire and I less than five minutes to realize that all of the nights I have free this week, she is working basketball games. They’re local, which means more people would recognize us leaving together if I just happened to show up.

Then again, if Penelope already knows…

It’s all such a mess. I know that she’s feeling as sick over all of this as I am.

And then, there’s the elephant in the room.

Cal is seated across from me at the dinner table that we grew up eating at, his personality as big as the earth itself, waxing poetic about his residency. And I have absorbednone of it.

I’m too tangled up in Claire.

Wanting to call her to clear the air. To hold her in my arms and reassure her that, despite the mount of issues we built before us just this morning, things will be okay.

Will they, though?

“Nate?”

“Hmm?”

Cal pulls me from my thoughts, and I realize he’s asked me a question.

“I’m sorry,” I say, shaking my head and fidgeting my fork around a barely eaten Chinese takeout meal. “What were you saying?”

Cal grins, and huffs a laugh.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you distracted like this. Is it work, or does she have a name?”

My cheeks instantly heat, and my little brother’s face is alight with joy.

“Nate!” he exclaims, slapping the table with both palms. “I leave home forfive minutesand you’re finally getting out there and living?! Oh, come on, tell me the details!”

I clear my throat, and my brain is fogged by juxtaposed emotions.

On one side, I’ve always felt likelivingmeant taking away from my brother, and sharing anything about my personal life with him wrings more guilt out of me.

On the other side?

I see the Cal that I knew before we wore matching hospital gowns and donned matching jackets to the Dead Parents Club. The little brother who only had to bethe little brother, who I read books to and built Legos with.

That image is what pierces my heart into almost spilling the truth.

Claire told Penelope. You’ve got to tell someone important to you.

“Her name is Claire,” is all I give to him. I’m still too covetous of her to reveal more.

So then why does my heart suddenly feel a hundred pounds lighter?

Despite his brotherly poking and prodding—just like when he was only my brother and not my responsibility.

I stand and take our dishes to the kitchen, and am greeted by the dreaded monster of financial paperwork that I’ve been avoiding, stacked neatly on the kitchen island. I’m supposed to bring it up to him tonight. We’re supposed to formulate a plan.

But I don’t have a plan.

Because the moment Claire so much as mentioned that she would have to start working late at night, would possibly be picking up a second job once she was done at River Valley in order to start clinical hours for the future she never thought she’d have, I started looking at all of the things I could be doing differently with my money.

And that’s what chokes me.

The thought that I’ll touch my inheritance for her, but not for my little brother and our childhood home.

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