Page 37 of Missing Linc
She’s changing jobs. She’s quitting her job. She called our parents. She ate my blueberry muffins. Yeah, the last one will for sure make me mad. But it wouldn’t make her this chirpy.
It’s something else.
“And breathe out. Open your eyes and slowly sit up,” says the woman on the screen, and we’re finally done.
We roll up our mats and push the coffee table back in place, and the more time it takes for her to speak again the more nervous I get.
If she… ate my muffins, I’m never speaking to her again.
We go to the kitchen, and she pours herself a cup and offers to pour mine. She does so with pursed lips and eyes trained on my mug.
“Oh, just spill it out already,” I tell her when it gets too much.
She sighs and leans back against the kitchen counter.
“I’m moving out,” she says.
The mug slips from my hands, and it comes crashing down on the tiled floors, splashing my feet with the hot coffee and making an absolute mess.
“What? Ouch.” The scalding from the coffee has me jumping on one leg like a clown, and Autumn gets me some ice from the freezer to cool the spot.
She does it all without looking me in the eye.
The fucking cow.
“What do you mean you’re moving out? Why? Where? When?” I ask her.
“You promised me you wouldn’t get mad.”
“Well, you promised you’d always look after me, but here we are,” I retaliate.
I know it’s not fair on her. And it’s not like I can’t look after myself, but I’m mad, so sue me. I know bringing up something she said four years ago is not the best course of action, but it’s the only thing I’ve got.
And for what it’s worth, it does the trick. Because she finally looks up at me.
“I know, honey. I love you, you know that. But I need a fresh start. I’m… I feel stuck here,” she says.
“Because of me.”
“No, not because of you. Don’t be silly. If anything, you’re the only thing in my life I’m notstuckabout. It’s everything else,” she says.
And okay, as far as sister speeches go, I can’t fault her. Well, I can, but the way her voice becomes almost a whisper and her eyes turn red, I know she’s serious and this is hard for her, so no, I can’t fault her.
“Wh-where are you going?”
She looks down at my feet again, patting my burns with more ice.
“I spoke to a friend of Parker’s,” she says.
I don’t say anything. I wait for her to finish her thought.
She takes the ice to the sink and empties it there, and then opens a drawer and takes out a bottle of essential oil. Lemon. Helps with burns. She rubs it all over my leg.
“He used to be Parker’s Commander before he retired, and he says he has a job for me in his bar,” she says.
Again, not looking at me.
For fuck’s sake, Autumn. If you’re going to break my heart, the least you can do is look at me.
