Page 80 of The Checklist
Your help isn’t helpful. Stay out of it.
I’m just so sorry! Tim went off the rails and I basically got fired. Then, I fucked over Mike, too.
Dylan hit send, hoping her list of excuses would buy her the momentary reprieve she needed to reason with Stacy. But as she began typing, Stacy’s reply appeared.
Not everything is about you!
Dylan felt her friend’s words like a slap in the face. The truth behind them burning as much as her regret. Stacy’s typing bubble disappeared as Dylan sat there, her heart breaking. She had to say something.Feeling her fingers fumble around the keyboard, she hit send on another round of apologies.
I’m sorry.
I completely messed up.
I am so sorry.
Intellectually, Dylan knew her friend had walked away from the conversation, and she couldn’t fix it. She couldn’t fix anything. Not her job, her old relationship, her new relationship, or her broken friendships. Dylan felt the prickling in her eyes turn into an aggressive sting and cursed the foggy windows. Her nose started to run as a pitiful hiccup escaped her lips. Hunching low in her seat, she could almost see the road through the windshield.
If she could be anywhere else, beanyoneelse—someone with less mess in their past, less disaster in their present, and less nothing in their future—she would be. Blinking at the hulking gray outline of her former building, she gave up caring.
“Fuck it.” Dylan put her foot on the brake and her car in reverse. Tucking herself into a crouch, she drove off.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Dylan didn’t bother to fix her nearly perpendicular parking job as she bolted toward the house. She fumbled with the keypad on the door as a frenetic laugh fought to escape her throat. Her mother would change the code on the one day she needed to be home. Jangling the knob in the hope that someone had left the thing unlocked, she fell off kilter as Neale swung the door open.
“Oh God. Did Dad text you too?”
“What?” Dylan blinked at her sister as she pushed herself upright using the doorframe.
“Dad and Linda are at it again over the Tiger. He is so dramatic.” Neale rolled her eyes, standing aside to let her sister in.
“I don’t ...” Dylan started into the hallway, then stopped to look at Neale as she closed the door. “What do you want me to do about it?”
“Nothing.”
Taking a deep breath, Dylan looked at her sister as tears started to roll down her face. She glanced over at the living room but decided the cleaning job she had done had long since lost out to Milo’s fur. Instead she opted for the stairs, gracelessly flopping down as another sob shook her body.
“Dyl, don’t cry. I wasn’t telling you to fix it. Mom is there smoothing things over now.” Neale looked at her sister with a mixture of alarmand horror as Dylan tucked her knees under her chin and wiped at her eyes with her sleeve.
“Thank you,” Dylan said into her thighs, a fresh round of tears running down her face. “It’s not that. I fucked up. A lot.”
Neale settled next to her with more dignity than Dylan had mustered, tucking her ratty tennis shoes close to her sister’s chocolate-brown heels. Leaning her head against Dylan’s shoulder, Neale asked, “Can you tell me?”
In between ugly sobs, Dylan explained the entire messy affair from end to end. To her sister’s credit, Neale did not ask questions. In fact, outside of trying to wipe her sister’s nose with her sleeve, Neale didn’t interrupt her for the first time since she was old enough to talk. As Dylan rubbed chunks of mascara out of her eyes, Neale lifted her head to face her sister.
“So there is a lot here.”
“Your weeklong stint as a guidance counselor is showing,” Dylan laughed, looking at the black smudges covering her hands.
“I was really more of an admin at a counselor’s office,” Neale corrected, a smirk creeping across her face. “I’ll put it out there that I’m going to want a different set of details about Mike Robinson later. Knowing you, that requires some wine and a lot less snot, so know that I have notes.”
“I might need something stronger than wine for that.”
“Weed is legal as long as we aren’t near a school.”
Dylan giggled at the speed with which her sister replied, then fell silent, the edges of her sweater soaked with tears.
“Dylan, I think we are low enough that I can be frank,” Neale said, pulling a piece of Milo’s fur off Dylan’s sweater. She felt her spine stiffen at the touch, although she knew it was the words that caused the tension. “You have been laid low by that sad, self-important suit wearer,” Neale said, hugging her knees, subconsciously mirroring Dylan’s posture.
