Page 145 of The Rom-Commers

For maybe the first time ever, I wasn’t on Sylvie’s side first.

I wanted to empathize with her, I really did.

Objectively, their little fantasy was lovely. Who wouldn’t get excited about building a little health-and-wellness-themed life with Salvador—kids running around and trips to the farmers market and cutting-edge therapies to help our dad live his best possible life?

In another frame of mind, I might have jumped on board, too.

But as it was—in traffic while rushing to the airport with our dad in emergency surgery, still wearing Charlie’s humiliating fleece-lined sweatshirt—I was having trouble accentuating the positive. All I could see in Sylvie and Salvador’s plan was selfishness. Selfishness and hubris. They wanted togo to the beach? How dare they?

Didn’t they know that if there was some way to make life with Dadcharming and delightfulI would have found it already?

“You left him,” I said, feeling a howl in my chest that I now recognize as ten years of unspoken resentment. “To go to the beach! And he fell down the stairs. And now he’s on the brink of death getting a hole drilled in his head. That’s all there is to it. Did you think what I’ve been doing all these years was easy? Did you think I just hadn’t been creative enough in my approach? Did you think I didn’t go to the beach because I didn’t want to?”

Sylvie didn’t answer.

“Ilovethe damn beach!” I half shouted.

Sylvie was still crying, but I didn’t care.

“I would’ve givenanythingto go to the beach! But I didn’t! Because I knew that I—I alone—was the only thing standing between the only parent we’ve got left and this exact situation! You knew that, too. You couldn’t have not known. But I must’ve ruined you. I killed myself to give you everything you ever wanted and I guess I taught you that’s how life is. But I was lying the whole time. That’s the opposite of how life is. You don’t get everything you want! You get a few tiny, broken pieces of what you thought you wanted and you tell yourself over and over it’s more than enough!”

“I’m sorry,” Sylvie whispered.

But I was revved up now. “It’s so tempting to blame myself,” I went on. “That I set you up for failing me by never asking you to sacrifice anything or think about anyone else,ever, other than yourself.I’m so tempted to sayThat’s on me, like I always do. But you know what, Sylvie? This one is really on you. This wasn’t complicated. This wasn’t confusing. You were told what to do! Never let Dad out of your sight! Simple! Noteasy, but simple! I did it day in and day out for ten years—and all I needed from you was six pathetic weeks. But I guess I can’t have them. You can give up your internship and act all self-sacrificing and do this grand gesture of telling me to go off and live my dreams—but if you can’t do the job right, then I can’t really do it, can I? If you leave Dad alone and he winds up in the ICU and I have to race home to Texas at the crack of dawn without even telling Charlie what happened and I wind up breaching our contract and not even getting paid—that’s the same thing as not letting me go at all!”

But as soon as I heard those words, I had to correct them. “No! Wait!” I went on, my voice starting to tremble. “It’sworse! Because you got my hopes up. And it’s so much more agonizing to hope for something and not get it than to never even hope at all.”

“I’m sorry,” Sylvie rasped out.

But I was so angry I didn’t care. “I don’t even know what to do right now,” I said. “But I know one thing for sure. If Dad dies? If yourtrip to the beachkills our father? You will never see me again—guaranteed.”

But I guess Sylvie had had enough of being called a murderer for now.

There was a funny half pause. And then Sylvie said, “If my trip to the beach kills our father,” Sylvie said, “we’ll be even. Because your trip to the mountains killed our mom.”

“OOF,” THE UBERdriver said as the line went dead. “That was harsh.”

Guess we’d been on speaker. And in the long, disconnected silence that followed, I wondered if I’d ever forgive her.

Even with family—people you’re presumably trapped with for life—there are deal-breakers. I’d loved Sylvie all her life unconditionally. ButI guess there were some conditions I hadn’t thought of. Because I never could have even imagined her saying what she just said.

But she’d said it. She spoke my worst fear about my life out loud.

And now I wanted to punish her by never speaking to her again.

I let that stand as my tentative plan: We were done—forever.

But I also gave myself permission to recant. Because yes, cutting Sylvie off forever would punish her. But it would punish me, too.

I was mulling that over when the driver hit the brakes so hard that my phone flew off my lap and smacked the seat back in front of me—and then we came to a full stop on the highway. A full stop at the start of what looked like miles and miles of traffic ahead.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“Looks like some traffic,” he said.

“I see that,” I said. “But what’s causing it?”

“Not sure,” he said.

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