Page 28 of Born in the Spring

“So you forgot everyone else’s numbers?”

He rubbed a hand over his face and held it there, trying to keep his calm and not remind me now that we hardly talked on the phone when he was gone; his life was separate then and healways wanted to bring it back to us in one swoop.

“I know why you’re behaving this way,” he finally said.

“Behaving what way?”Hurt? Confused? Even when I shouldn’t be?I pushed for him to answer that himself, to admit to what he was doing wrong.

“You can’tdothings like this,” he said with some feeling, some stress finally in his voice. “Every time I’m with her, you can’t—”

“You’re notwithher,” I cut in as a protest and a disbelief and a hope, but that truth was a taunt in the front of my mind. And my heart sank further when he confirmed it.

“I am now.”

I looked toward one of the front windows, then the door, blinking as they went blurry, my insides yelling for Elara to either look back or come out to grant me my denial with hers.

But she didn’t.

“You knew I liked her.” Every word was a beat at my chest, and his words back beat harder.

“Jasper, you’re a teenager. She’s a grown woman—”

“I’m an adult now,” I argued, trying to steady my voice and sound like one, but he just kept beating me down.

“You’re still ateenager.” He stepped closer to me, pleading at me with his hands, and I moved back. “She’s agrown woman. I’m a grown man. She’smyage. We make sense.”

Nothing made sense to me right then. Nothing could.

“I’m sorry,” he said low, and I didn’t want his apology. He shouldn’t have been apologizing, because this shouldn’t have been happening. I wanted his raised voice. I wanted him to, for once, know what it was like to be me here and how crushing it felt. I wanted useven.

“I fell for her, okay?”

“But you didn’t have to!” I exploded on him. “Onething, man. You could’ve let me have—” My voice cracked off, and at the pity on his face, I started again. “I might be ateenagernow…but I wouldn’t have been one forever.”

He sighed again, the pity he held me to deepening to a sympathy he didn’t have a right to show to me. “Twelve years, Jasper. You’retwelveyears apart. You’ll always be too young for her.”

I was shaking my head as he pressed on. “I wanna be with her.” And that was when I pushed past him. “And she wants to be with me—Jasper!”

“You take everything from me,” I said, spinning on him again, this release quieter, dug up from our own lifetime together. “It’s not just—” My voice cracked off again as I motioned my arm toward where Elara was behind the door, and I shuddered a breath, giving him a condensed version of that list. “Dad. You. You even takeyou.” I blinked more blur from my eyes. “Did you think I wanted to grow up with my big brother coming in and out of my life?”

His face twisted, but I was too stunned over myself to tell if it was more from pain or confusion as he took new, slower steps to me. “Okay, that’s a different conversation. . .”

“That we’re not having,” I muttered as the door opened and Elara walked out, wrapped in her jacket.

The blue flames in her eyes were bright. Worried.

“Where are you going?” Shepherd asked her, the worry reflected in his tone now, as she approached us—well, more accurately, the steps.

“I’m gonna sleep in my room.”

“Elara—”

“I already told Vanessa I was coming back,” she said, andthat shut Shepherd up with a sigh. Vanessa would’ve been the next one up here on a search if Elara was even a second late. “You two should spend some time together.”

She had to know that wasn’t happening now, not tonight. So throwing me off on my brother because I was whining on his porch wouldn’t work. But I appreciated where she was coming from.

“Elara.” I called for her when she was at the bottom step and met her halfway. “I’m sorry.” I wasn’t apologizing for my feelings, but I was sorry for how they made me act. How they made me look. Everything she just saw and heard. I was feelingeverything, all kinds of emotions I’d never felt before, all over a woman I shouldn’t have. An older woman, who was now my brother’s girl. And none of that could change anything, but this moment, looking at her now, I was just fucking sorry.

Her only response was a nod, but that was all her grace I needed. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” she said to both of us before walking off, but she was looking at me.

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