Page 118 of Let It Be Me

“So you’ve talked to them about this. All four of them?”

“Just a couple times. You weren’t being left out.”

“Pretty sure that’s exactly what I was.”

“Fair. But I wish I’d been too.”

“Fair.”

Is it possible to be absolutely spinning with confusion and completely calm at the same time? Because that’s what I am. Blindsided, dizzy with questions, and somehow totally accepting it. Like maybe some tiny sleeping part of me already knew this.

“Why are you telling me this today?”

He smirks. “Because if I have to know, so do you.”

“Ant.”

The smile disappears. “Because it’s the best way I know how to explain what went wrong between us.” His brows pull together. “Everything changed when I found out.”

“You’ve been pissed at me longer than that. We all know the night things changed.”

“No. This was bigger.”

“How?” I demand.

“It’s stupid . . .” He sighs.

“I’m sure it is. Go on.”

He gives a brief smile, but his hands tighten around the steering wheel. “We have the same parents. Which makes you the successful son and me the loser. I can’t see it any other way now.”

I stare at him, and the way he sets his jaw reminds me of my father. It’s only then the meaning of it all sinks in: This is my brother. It’s not at all like having a cousin who’slikea brother. I was an only child and now I’m not. I don’t know what it’s supposed to feel like, but it feels incomprehensible. And way too deep for me to handle right now. I push it away and dig for some humor. “Huh.” I clear my throat. “Yeah, I guess I could see that—you’re taller, funnier, you’ve got a better arm, and you lost your virginity first. Yeah, I can see how you come up short.”

His scowl has turned into a reluctant, lopsided smile.

“So I guess what you’re saying is I’m going to spend the rest of my life comparing myself to you?” I ask.

“Probably, if you’re anything like me. Which it turns out, you totally are.”

We drive for what feels like hours, but we don’t talk about it anymore. We talk about football and high school and his job and, in between, we’re quiet.

It’s dark when he drops me at home. The first thing I do when I’m alone is pull out my phone to text Ruby, exactly like I have a thousand times. She’s always been the one. The girl I go to. But I look at the last text she sent me from before we broke up, and I just can’t. For the first time, I don’t have someone to run to.

That fact doesn’t stop me from walking over to her apartment and standing on the corner. Her lights are off, but that doesn’t mean she’s not home. It’s past midnight. Maybe she’s asleep under that window, her arm slung over her eyes because shehates the streetlights but loves being able to glance up at the stars as she falls asleep.

I still have her house key. Is this what she did the night she sneaked into my bed and started everything that followed? Did she stare at my dark bedroom window wondering whether I was asleep or awake, alone or tangled up with someone else, her body buzzing with anticipation and the energy of needing to be next to me? I’ve wished to go back in time and change things so many times, but tonight I wish I could go back and live that night exactly the way it was.

Or any night she was part of.

I’d take when we were just friends or when we were fighting or even when I was burning with jealousy, watching her and Brad across the room. I’d take anything at all if she were in it.

How different would it all have turned out if I hadn’t tried so hard to keep a death grip on everything? What if I let myself love Ruby the way I wanted to four years ago and let her love me back? If I’d accepted what she told me and gave her the truth right back instead of treating her words like a deep, dark secret I had to hide from both of us? If I never cared about the timing, maybe she’d be next to me right now instead of the farthest from me I’ve ever felt.

FORTY-SIX

ruby

The ceiling fanin my childhood bedroom still wobbles exactly the way it did when I was a kid. I know because I’ve spent hours staring up at it the last few days.

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