Page 71 of When I'm Gone

Parker’s face screws up in confusion. “But I got them for us. Why would I want to go with Chase?”

“You did what?” I squeak.

Surely, he doesn’t mean that… He chews on his bottom lip before glancing around the room. “Um, yeah. Okay, so, I wasn’t going to say that. But is it the worst thing ever? I saw them, and it seemed like a golden opportunity to do something just the two of us.”

Swallowing thickly, I focus on my bracelet so I don’t dosomething fucking stupid like start crying. “Why would you want that?”

Purple, white. Purple, white. It doesn’t matter if he even answers; it was a dumb question. Purple, white.Don’t spell anything wrong, stupid.

A warm hand reaches across the rug and squeezes my leg briefly, just above my ankle. “Easton, look at me,” he murmurs.

Grinding my molars together, I do. “I know it’s easy to assume ulterior motives, but really, truly, I just want us to be friends. Big families are hard to adjust to, so smaller groups help make it less overwhelming.”

After coughing to clear the lump in my throat, I ask, “Have you done this before?”With guys that Chase brings home,I tack on internally.

Parker shrugs. “Sure, baseball games were more his style though. But it’s cool, any kind of outing is just as fun as the next as far as.”

I nod and get started on another bracelet without finding the right thing to say in response to that. Just another worry on the list, I suppose. Am I measuring up to the guys that came before me? Unless Chase collects boyfriends straight out of the psych ward, there’s a good chance that I’m the least stable, which is a blow.

After what couldn’t have been more than a few minutes, Parker’s maximum silence tolerance, he pipes back up. “But Brady is more of a sports guy. You know that. Me? I like anything. Being picky is how you get bored, if you ask me.”

Wait, what? “I’m confused,” I admit.

Parker hums as he ties off his latest creation. When he holds it up for approval, I nod, biting back a smile despite myself. “Well, Brady is the only person worth putting in the effort for until now. Curtis, that’s Sage’s dad, he was a total jackass from the jump so none of us even bothered. We aren’texactly giving out tickets to the Adler circus, if you know what I mean. I would, obviously, for the right person, but it’s a lot of pressure. None of my girlfriends have made the cut so far. Logan or Emerson either.”

It takes me a decent chunk of time to process the info-dump, but he left out the sibling that I was asking about, I think. “And Chase…?” I gently hedge.

He snorts. “I just said that. Chase brought home you and Brady.”

I barely resist the temptation to dig my hands into my eye sockets. “But he hasn’t brought home any guys he was dating?”

“What guys? Chase doesn’t date. Everyone knows that. If he’s ever had a boyfriend, I damn sure didn’t know about it.” He pauses momentarily. “Then there was you,” he adds happily, making my heart constrict dangerously.

If I was the hugging type, I’d launch myself across this damn carpet and squeeze the life out of Parker. The easy way he refers to me as Chase’s boyfriend, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world, makes my head spin. How fucking pleased he seems by the notion. Like I’ve already received the golden ticket, a whole family that not only accepts me but wants to bond with me.

Take that, Momma. I never needed you, anyway.

I hope one day, when her wrath has long since burned out, I hope it hurts. That she sits alone in some nursing home, watching the families of other long-term residents visit and wonders about us. The boys she turned her back on because of something as intrinsic to me as my blue eyes. Her sons, who chose each other and didn’t look back.

Even with the awkwardness that comes with rebuilding once a wall of lies comes crumbling down, there isn’t a doubt in my mind that Brady would ever look back to that house in Florida with anything other than contempt. He didn’t knowif I was dead or alive and still didn’t lean on them for support or familiarity.

Parker pulls me from my thoughts by tossing a bracelet in my lap. Upon inspection, it’s made of glitter beads arranged in a rainbow. “It’s pretty,” I tell him.

“You didn’t read it.”

Also true. I thought my role here was to simply approve of his creative process, not spell check him. I’m expecting a short lyric or song title, but instead, I find a name. Mine. “Parker…”

“We’re making friendship bracelets. It’s, like, required that we make at least one for each other. Do you like it? I went with rainbows because they’re pretty, and Chase said you like pretty colors.”

“I do like pretty colors,” I murmur. What is with these people? Can’t at least one of them be a chronic underachiever with a personality deficiency? Do all of them really have to be so damn thoughtful?

I’m not mad, not really, but I am floored by the whiplash I’m experiencing. It’s going to take some effort on my part to not second-guess this, wondering if it’s really too good to be true. If at the slightest stumble on my end, they’ll decide I’m not worth it anymore.

But I am going to try.

“It’s perfect, Parker. Thank you,” I mumble, forcing myself to meet his eyes.

His chipper voice breaks up some of the gravity I’m feeling, thank fuck. “You gotta make me one too, or it doesn’t count. It’s, like, a curse or something.”

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