Page 87 of The Heartbreak Hotel
My eyes sting. “So it’s my fault she’s in this mess.”
“Absolutely not,” Goldie snarls. “Don’t even say that. Mom is a grown woman, responsible for all of her own shit, and you’re herchild, Lou. It makes me livid, watching her expect you to solve things for her.” She leans away, but her eyes hold mine, angry and unblinking. “You’ve got to let that go. It’s not your burden.”
I swipe at my eyes, sniffing inelegantly into the cold. It’s always felt like my burden. Like it belongs to me as much as my hair, my fingernails.
“I would rather die,” Goldie says, “than have Quinn ever feel the way Mom’s made you feel. Like I expect him to sacrificeanypart of his own happiness to clean up after me.”
“You would never do that to Quinn,” I whisper.
“No,” Goldie says. Her voice is like flint, sparking. “And Mom should never have done it to you.”
I think of all the years I lived with Goldie. All the mornings she drove me to school before class, all the pieces of her childhood that she missed because of me. “Or you,” I say. “All that time you raised me, instead of her.”
Goldie blinks, the fury breaking from her face. Her eyes flicker away from mine, down to the sidewalk. I say, “Thank you.”
“You don’t need to thank me.”
I take a step closer. “Mom needs to, but she probably won’t, and you should get to hear it.”
Goldie looks up at me. Swallows. “Then thank you, also. From Mom.”
I nod. And then I take a shuddering breath and say, “I failed my NCE.”
Goldie’s head snaps back, her eyes flaring wide. “What? When?”
“Right after I finished my clinical hours,” I tell her, “just like I planned.” A couple walks through the double doors, arm in arm, and we step out of the way. I’ve essentially forgotten where we are, or that anyone could have overheard that entire exchange. But it’s too late now. “Nate was in Stockholm with Say It Now. He cheated on me the night before the test, and I saw a picture of it, and it totally got in my head.”
Goldie stares at me, unblinking.
“I failed it.” My voice thins out, but I force myself to shrug—like this is even a little bit casual, like this isn’t the scariest thing I’ve ever said out loud to my sister. “And I had to wait to retake it. But I’m going to, on the sixteenth. So that’s why I’ve been doing all this stuff, with the house. Because I couldn’t do anything else yet.”
Goldie glances out at the cars, in through the glass doors, back at me. Like she’s looking for something, though I can’t imagine what. “Why didn’t you just tell me?”
I laugh, an insuppressible gasp. “Tell Goldie Walsh that Ifailed? Goldie Walsh who went to college on a full-ride merit scholarship? Who got a perfect score on her LSAT? Goldie Walsh who—”
“Stop it.” She holds up her hand. “I’m yoursister, Lou, you can tell me anything.”
“Can I?”
The question hangs between us, damning. Goldie’s nose wrinkles, and I realize that she’s about to cry.
“Yeah,” she says, shakily. “Of course you fucking can.”
“But you would’ve been so mad at me,” I say. “For letting Nate—”
“Fuck Nate,” Goldie says. I laugh again, my own eyes blurring with tears. “Truly fuck him for fucking with you like that, especially in a way that impacted your career. I’ve always hated him.”
“I know,” I say, wiping my eyes. She swipes at hers, too—surreptitious, but impossible to miss.
“Lou, I’m sorry.” She raises her chin, like she’s leaning into the apology. “I’m sorry I made you feel like there’s anything you can’t share with me.”
“Thank you,” I say. I can count on one hand the number of times Goldie’s apologized to me in our lifetime.
“I’m really proud of you,” she says. My throat tightens like a vise, and I swat my hand at her. “No, I mean it. I don’t say it enough.” She waves toward the double doors. “And that, in there? I mean, you’ve always been so much better at this really hard shit than I am. Mom’s lucky to have someone like you—who gets it. I know her diagnosis comes from trauma and I know she’s been through it, but it’s so hard for me to separate that from how much she’s hurt us, and how angry I am, but you—” Goldie breaks off, draws a breath. She’s never said any of this to me before—not ever. “You’re impressive,” she finishes, quieter. “I mean it.”
She’s completely blurred out in front of me. My voice is thick and strangled when I say, “We’re a good team.”
She nods. I close the distance between us, finally hugging heragainst me. She melts into it, letting out a puff of breath over my shoulder. “We are.”
