Page 50 of Where We Belong

“It’s not fine. It wasn’t even loud.”

“Doesn’t matter,” she says, hiding her gaze behind her bangs. I feel like getting up to pull her hair back and tilt her chin up. “I don’t want to make him mad.”

“Why?” All the muscles in my body have contracted, and I’m still as a statue as I wait. When she doesn’t answer, I get up from the windowsill I was sitting on and join her across the room. “Josie, why?”

She drops back down onto the bed. “You don’t know what it’s like when he’s here. Everyone’s fighting all the time. I just do whatever I can to keep away from trouble, that’s it.”

I breathe out. I don’t remind her that I’ve lived with him for far longer than I would’ve wanted to, even though he’d been away from home for a few months before I left. I do remember what it was like to live with him. I guess the difference is I didn’t mind stirring shit up if I thought he was acting like a dick, but Josie’s much younger than him and a much sweeter person than I am.

“Have you told Mom?” I ask.

“She can’t do anything about it,” Josie answers as she opens one of my oldSeventeenmagazines, telling readers what type of highlights they should get and how to score as many dates as possible in high school.

I open my mouth to say she’s wrong, but deep down, I don’t think she is, or at least not completely. Momcoulddo something about it. She could tell Kyle to shove it if he doesn’t want to be nice to her daughter. She could kick him out. She could decide to finally take a stand. But she never will, because I don’t think she even realizes what could possibly benefit her daughter.

Josie’s still browsing the magazine, not even looking up when I approach her spot on the bed. I guess she’s done talking about this.

“I’m going to go grab a drink. Want anything?” I ask.

“I’m good,” she says. Her sock-clad feet are crossed in the air as she flips through. It hasn’t been that long since I left Arizona, and yet it feels like she’s grown so much in the short period I was gone. I’m not sure if the change is physical or emotional, but I feel like my little sister is not so little anymore.

I drop a kiss to her head, then leave the room and walk straight outside the house, where I find my mother sitting on a plastic chair, smoking a cigarette while scrolling through her phone. I grab a seat next to hers, making her glance up.

We’ve barely talked since I got here. I don’t think she even knew I was coming for the holidays. When she opened the door and found me standing on the front porch with my small duffel bag and hands full of groceries, she only said, “What are you doing here?” I explained Josie had invited me, and that was that. NoI’m happy to see youorI missed youorHow has it been going?She just opened the door for me and went to grab a beer in the kitchen, her yellow hair hanging limply down her back.

Today, she’s wearing a Corona tank top and tiny jean shorts, her nails chipped as she pulls the cigarette away from her lips and blows smoke out.

“Hey,” I say.

“Hey.”

I chew on my bottom lip, wondering how to go about this, then say, “I was wondering what you were planning on doing with Kyle.”

“Jesus Christ, Lexie, can’t you give me a fucking break?”

I grind my teeth.Calm. Stay calm. “Mom, I—”

“No, I think it’s timeyoulisten.” She takes a drag of her cigarette. “You’re real fucking selfish, you know that?” Clumps of mascara hang from her lashes as she blinks. “You left here like you were so much better than this life, then you come back and try to take control of the place.”

“That’s not what I’m trying to do. I just want—”

“I gave you everything you could possibly want,” she spits, a finger pointed in my direction, “and you still want more. You’re never happy.”

Pressure builds behind my eyes, in my throat, in my chest. She gave me everything except love and security. The two things I wish Josie could have.

“Look, I don’t want to fight,” I say. “I just know Kyle hasn’t been nice with Josie and—”

“IfJosiehas a problem, then she can tell me. As for Kyle, he’s found a job, and he’s bringing money in. We’re all doing good here. I don’t need you to tell me how to live, okay?” She shakes her head and looks away. Her cheeks cave around her cigarette. “I don’t even know why you’re here. If you’re too good for us, you should’ve stayed wherever it is you live now. We’d all have been better off.”

Don’t break. It’s nothing you haven’t heard one way or another before.

“I came for Josie,” I say. “Because she wanted me here, and despite what you think, I do care about this family.” I stand on wobbly legs. “And I don’t think I’m better than you are. I just want her to be happy.”

“’s there a problem here?”

I look up to find Jim—Mom’s new boyfriend—stepping toward us. He’s wearing a stained white T-shirt and dark jeans, a blond mustache curling over his upper lip. I met him yesterday, and while he won’t win stepdad-of-the-year anytime soon, he doesn’t seem dangerous, although you can never really know with that kind of thing.

“We’re good,” I say.

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