Page 52 of Love at First Flight

“I said I wasn’t planning on seeing Dex anymore, which is an entirely different thing than breaking up because we weren’t dating in the first place. It’s not a big deal. I’m fine and he’s fine.” God, she hoped he was fine. She was tempted to send a message to check on him, even while realizing he most likely didn’t want to hear from her.

“But why?” Hailey’s brows pressed together, looking as crushed as Selah felt on the inside.

Selah released a deep sigh from her gut, not wanting to discuss it with her mother, let alone her youngest sister. She decided to be diplomatic about it. “Dex and I just decided—”

Her sister scoffed in disbelief. “I’m already calling bullshit on whatever you’re about to say. I know this was all you. Dex was a great guy. He was so hot for you, it practically oozed out of him. I can’t believe you’d just drop him like that.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. Weren’t you the one who described him as ‘mid’? Yeah, I’m pretty sure that was you.”

“Isthisbecause of me?” Her sister at least had the wherewithal to appear horrified at the possibility her action had a consequence she didn’t expect.

“No. Not everything is about you, Hailey. You really think I’d break up with someone because you think they’re mid?”

“I thought you said it wasn’t a breakup?”

“I—” Selah took a breath to restart the conversation. To be honest, she was surprised Hailey was coming to Dex’s defense. She had no idea why her sister felt so strongly about this. But it was weird Selah wasn’t the one standing up for him because Hailey was right—he was great and didn’t deserve any of this. “It’s not a breakup. I’m just pointing out that your original opinion of him wasn’t very nice.”

“And I changed my mind. He’s perfect for you.” Her sister’s eyes turned dark with anger as she crossed her arms. “Butyouprobably did something to ruin it. Why don’t you just go ahead and leave already? I don’t know how you can be so cold and uncaring. You’re okay leaving us behind like we’re nothing, like it’s easy.”

Aggravation flared inside Selah’s chest. “Do you think any of this is easy for me? That I haven’t worked my ass off? That I wouldn’t love to be as carefree as you? Or be able to just throw myself into having something with Dex? How do you know my heart isn’t always breaking?”

Her control over her emotions shredded as large, hot tears slid down her cheeks. “But I have to be the rock. I have to make sure Mom’s bills get taken care of because some days it’s just too hard for her to think about it. I have to make sure that Dad’s shitty financial decisions don’t come back to bite the rest of us in the ass. I have to be the one who holds herself together. If you don’t think I’m not also pissed off at everything, you’d be wrong. I am. And the one person”—her voice cracked at the thought of Dex—“the one person who allowed me to lean on them when I needed it, I can’t have, and I can’t do anything about it. I don’t know how it would ever work with us, and I have everything else to think about. So you can go ahead and believe whatever you want, but just know that everything I do is for a reason, and none of it is fucking easy.”

Her sister stared at her during her outburst, dumbfounded, not saying anything.

Selah attempted to pull herself together, rubbing away any tears with the bottom of her fleece jacket while sniffing. She was exhausted, too tired from navigating through her days. She didn’t want to talk about it anymore, returning to her laptop screen, leaning forward so she could press her pounding forehead into her hand. This blocked Hailey from her view and, with any luck, her sister would go back to being mad and ignoring her.

She sat like that for a minute or two, not reading or processing the screen in front of her, attempting to concentrate. Selah hadn’t expected her sister to come to her and put her arms around her, stiffening from shock when she did.

“I’m so sorry,” Hailey said, her voice broken with her own weeping.

This only ruined Selah more as the tears came rushing forth again, overtaking her. It was hard not to feel broken and not to see her sister the same way.

“I’m sorry that I hurt you—what I said about Dad, and for everything. I’ve just been so... m-mad. I’ve been pissed at Mom for not being able to make decisions without Dad and holding onto that goddamn urn. And I’ve been pissed at you because sometimes it seems like you don’t even care. Maybe I did do that video to hurt you or get some kind of reaction. I feel like something is wrong with me, that I can’t hold everything together—”

“You’re just young. I know that, and I’m sorry I’ve been tough on you, but I can’t always be everyone’s rock all the time. I’m tired.”

“I know. You’re right. But I’m scared. I’m afraid I’m not going to be capable, like you. I don’t know if I can.”

Selah pulled her younger sister down until they were eye level, brushing her sister’s wild, curly hair from her cheek. “Listen to me. We are Moreno sisters. We can do anything. You are capable. Don’t ever let anyone tell you differently.” As she said the words, she realized maybe this was where she’d gone wrong. She’d been so busy trying to be marble and do everything for everyone, she forgot that the best thing she could do was teach her sisters how to be their own rock for themselves and each other. Maybe her support, whether it was about their father’s ashes or about other creative business ideas, meant more to her family than trying to be the perfect daughter and just keep everything going.

Hailey’s large brown eyes were so sad, Selah wanted to hold her, to let her sister lean against her for a little longer. “Dad wanted to take me for a special hot-air balloon ride, just him and me before my last birthday,” her sister said in a low voice, as though she was revealing a deep secret.

That would have been about a month before their father had passed away. This kind of thing wouldn’t have been out of the ordinary for Robert. “Okay,” Selah said.

“I did it, but I was kind of in a bad mood because I’d gone out with friends the night before, and we stayed out really late. I didn’t want to get up early. But he’d already gone through the trouble of gettingThe Blue Wonderready, so he said I had to, it was the golden hour. And he’d been so excited, but I was grumpy, so it kind of ruined the whole morning. I fooled around on my phone instead of talking to him. But then I said...” She burst into more tears, her skin turning red. “I said,This is really your and Selah’s thing. You should just do it with her. She’s the only one who cares about your balloon.”

Selah should have been angry because she knew those words from Hailey would have devastated Robert. He’d been trying to have a special moment with her sister, and she’d tossed it away. Except there was no reason to get upset when this memory had clearly been weighing her sister down all this time.

Hailey continued, “And I could tell he was mad. You remember how he used to grind his jaw together? Yeah, he was doing that. But he didn’t say anything. Not for the rest of the flight. Just stayed quiet and landed the balloon. It’s kind of like what you do. You can tell when you don’t want to deal, and you just switch yourself over to autopilot mode.” She looked away. “And the only thing he said to me after we landed was,I don’t care what you do, Hailey. Just do something that makes you happy, something as happy as you and your sisters and mother and this balloon make me. I thought it was such a weird thing to say because I had hurt him and couldn’t have been making him happy. And now it’s too late and I’ll never be able to go up in that big blue balloon with him ever again. So, yeah, I’m pissed off, too, but the person I’m most pissed off at is me.”

“Oh, Hailey,” Selah responded, hugging her sister, letting her cry on her shoulder. There wasn’t anything she could say to make her sister feel better. If she were her, she’d feel terrible too. “You know Dad didn’t hold a grudge. He wasn’t like that. He was probably just disappointed. You know he loved you.”

“You don’t hate me, do you?” her sister asked through her sobs.

“No.”

“Then stay. I don’t want to lose you too. You can be happy here. We all love you, Selah, and so does Dex.”

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