Page 83 of Between the Lines

I pull my little brother into a hug, burying my own tears into his soft brown hair. I don’t even get the chance to reassure him before my mom is barking orders at them.

“Okay. Say goodbye to Claire. We’ve got, like, eight places to get to.”

She snaps her fingers and I wince, watching my siblings fall into line with dread on their faces as they embark into the unknown. My mom leaves me with a disapproving, bitter expression, and I give myself one spare moment to let the guilt chew on me before I have to lock it up.

You don’t realize how much unnecessary crap you have until you have to shove it all into boxes and haul it away. Even with the way I’ve tried to live minimally—after seeing my parents want forthingsall my life—I still have more boxes than Penelope and I alone can fit into both our cars in one trip.

Even with the massive amount of trunk space her Escalade—Escalade???—has.

“I didn’t realize River Valley paid their teachersEscaladewell,” I balk, shifting the box that I had perched on my hip, because I almost dropped it upon seeing her massive wagon in my parents’ driveway.

Penelope shrugs.

“They really don’t,” she chuckles, taking the box from me with ease. “I learned way early on to be responsible with my money, so now I have room toplay.”

I sigh, taking her at her word, and move to work on the rest of my boxes.

“You’re doing the right thing,” Penelope says, coming up from behind me. “If they couldn’t even shift around their schedules for one night to help you, Claire Bear, their priorities aren’t straight.”

She tosses me a sad smile, and I can’t decide if that truth makes me feel better or worse. I toss it around in my head, the knowledge that my parents didn’t even offer so much as a box when I said I’d be moving out, let alone their time.

Because time has always been what they’ve coveted. Not their children, not the home they built for their Facebook friends and company Christmas cards, but getting to have all of thatandstill live like they’re in their twenties, without a care in the world.

A new sort of pain grips me, slowly braiding itself around my esophagus as I heave the heaviest box I can find—full of books—to take on some of my mental load. I’m doing my best to grunt around the ball of tears clogging my throat when I hear a commotion coming from the front yard. Immediately, I fear that my family has returned. I don’t get to decide which would be worse—them coming back to give me another lecture, or to beg me not to leave—because of the scene I find when I get to the open front door.

It’s Lucy and Aaron, standing in front of Aaron’s SUV and a minivan I’ve never seen before. They’re both wearing wide grins. Another SUV pulls up behind them, and Sam steps out, followed by a tall, gangly boy with dark hair, sporting a River Valley High track hoodie and athletic joggers. Juliet appears a moment later, her baby strapped around her with a wrap.

Aaron rubs his palms together and smiles.

“Where do we start?”

I can’t drop the box in my hands, because it weighs a thousand pounds and will likely break my foot if that’s where it lands. And besides, my books are my babies. The only things I’ve ever been able to really claim as my own, and the worlds I’ve always escaped intowhen home became a nightmare. I almost do. Ialmostlet the box go, but Penelope comes up behind me at the exact right moment and puts her hand on my shoulder, squeezing lightly.

“They love you. Let them.”

Let them.

Because in the past, I have been forced, and then determined, to do everything on my own.

So, instead, I let her reassuring shoulder squeeze and those two words pulse in my hesitant veins as I say, “My bedroom is the first one on the right.”

With five vehicles, it only takes us two total trips to move my things. I took no furniture, since it all belongs to my parents. They didn’t outright tell me I couldn’t take my bedroom set, but I took my possessions and the three bookshelves I bought with my own money and left the rest. I only lingered on the ghost town of my bedroom once before I closed the door and turned my back.

“I just can’t believe you cleaned it before you left,” Sam says, chewing on a slice of pizza that I provided for my moving crew in the most stereotypical move of all time.

“I would’ve done the same thing,” Aaron says, shuddering as he adds, “My momma would’ve come over here and yanked me out by the ear if I hadn’t.”

Mine wouldn’t, I ponder.She’d just tell me how disappointed she is the next time she sees me.

“Thank you guys again,” I reiterate for probably the billionth time.

“We’ve got your back,” Lucy says with a smile. The rest of the crew—minus Sam and Juliet’s son Mason, who was all too thrilled when Penelope revealed her PlayStation and told him to have at it—nods and passes along the sentiment.

Hope begins to stir in Juliet’s arms, getting fussy with what I’m assuming to be the hour creeping closer to her bedtime. By the time Oliver came around, I was the one who set those routines. Her little cries bring me to a somber place, twenty-one ringing in for me with a baby bottle, since my parents took a couple’s vacation that weekend.

But at the same time…

“Let me take her.”

---