Page 37 of Bitter Sweet Heart

“It’s fine.” She sips her tea and sets it down on the table. “And why are you deflecting?”

I focus on my mug for a moment. “For all these years, we’ve never really talked about what happened to my sister. A creative writing piece isn’t the same as a conversation, but putting it on paper . . . I don’t know. I didn’t expect it to sit with me the way it has.”

“Weas in you and your sister?”

“Weas in my family. We talkaroundit most of the time. I mean, it happened more than a decade ago—almost a decade and a half—so it makes sense that it’s not a huge topic of conversation. And Lavender doesn’t want to be defined by something that happened when she was too young to really remember.” I take a sip of my latte, wishing I’d gotten water, or that they served beer here instead.

“You were both quite young, weren’t you?”

I nod. Part of me wants to reject going back to that day, but the other part wonders whether purging this information will make things better.

“But old enough to remember,” she says softly.

I set my mug down. “I guess. Lavender says she remembers it mostly in smells and sensations, not what actually happened.”

Clover nods thoughtfully. “Do you think that’s because she was so young?”

“Maybe.” I pull a napkin from the dispenser. It’s thin and easy to tear, but it’ll keep my hands occupied. I start folding it into a square, following the pattern that’s engrained in my brain from doing it so often. “That’s the part I probably have the hardest time with—the never really knowing what happened. And it’s not like she hasn’t had loads of therapy. She’s gone not just because of what happened, but because she has pretty bad social anxiety. Even before the abduction, she was quiet whenever we were with people she didn’t know, or in large crowds. After, though, there were times we’d have to leave someplace because it was too much for her.”

“What would happen? What made it too much?”

“I don’t know really.” I run my tongue over my eye tooth for a few beats. “But she’d shut down. Like her body was there, but she was trapped in her head. It always freaked me out. I was scared she was going to stay like that. But she always came back. Eventually.”

“You said in the parking lot that you were supposed to wait. What did you mean by that?”

“We ran ahead of Lavender and River, and we shouldn’t have.”

“We?”

“Me and Kody. My best friend. He’s Lavender’s boyfriend now.” I set the finished crane on the table and pull another napkin free. I feel restless, like there’s an itch under my skin that I can’t get to. I want to get up and run—hit the ice and do skate suicides until my legs and lungs are burning. Until I puke. I do that sometimes, push my body so hard that I make myself throw up. Those nights I sleep almost peacefully.

“That sounds complicated. And you said your sister lives with you? What about Kody? Does he go to school here too?”

“Yeah.” I fold another crane, the piece of cake I ordered sitting untouched in front of me. “He and I play hockey together. He lives two doors down, with my cousin, but he’s obviously at our place a lot now too. He’s the reason I didn’t wait for my sister that night at the carnival.”

“I don’t understand. He didn’t want to wait?” Clover’s expression is pensive, like she’s trying to reconcile the story I wrote with what I’m telling her.

“No. He did. That’s why I didn’t.” I wish I could shut the hell up. There’s a reason I don’t talk about this. I don’t want everyone to know how fucking awful I really am. “Kody’s been in love with my sister since he could say her name. Even as kids, they had this untouchable bond. Lavender’s like that. She radiates goodness.”

“And you don’t think you do?”

I huff a laugh. “I’m not a good person.”

“From what I’ve witnessed, you’re pretty selfless.”

“I’m not, though.” I shake my head and lean forward, resting my chin on my fingers. “Sometimes I’m really fucking selfish.”

“How do you mean?”

I scrub a hand over my face as long-buried memories surface. “All I wanted to do was run through the funhouse one more time with Kody and then ride the roller coaster and get a funnel cake. But we spent what felt like a freaking hour—and was probably more like five minutes—convincing Lavender it would be fun if she came with us. I knew ninety percent of the reason she wanted to come was because Kody was going, and she idolized him.”

“And Kody is her boyfriend now?” I can see her trying to piece it all together.

“Yeah. They started dating this year.”

“Is that hard for you?”

“It was inevitable. Those two have been destined to be together their entire lives. Kody just needed to have his shit together first.” I poke the slice of cake with my fork. “Anyway, that night I was trying to be patient, but everything with Lavender was kind of an ordeal back then. She needed a lot of coaxing and coaching, even to do normal things. Anyway, she started to shiver, but she’d left her coat in the car on purpose. Our mom had made it for her, and it had this ruffle thing around the neck that made her itchy. Our mom was going to go back to the car to get it, but I didn’t want to wait, so I told Kody to give her his hoodie.”

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