Page 11 of The Fast Lane
“Try me, lady.”
“Fine. Yes, I promise. Go yell at your florist or something. You’re freaking me out.”
“Alright, honey, she understands,” Cal said, his voice gentle. He pried the phone away from his intended, who was still staring at me with freakishly violent eyes. Finally, she turned, and I watched her walk through the doorway to the kitchen behind Cal’s head.
Cal shook his head. “I can’t wait for this wedding to be over.”
“I heard that,” Melanie bellowed. “Don’t think I can’t hear you even if you’re whispering.”
He smacked a palm against his forehead, and I bit back a laugh.
“So, this favor…”
“It’s a big one.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I asked Abe to come to the wedding.”
“Really?”
“He hasn’t said yes.” A sadness seeped into his eyes. “I want this. I want to have everyone together. It’s time, you know?”
“Yeah,” I whispered.
Abe was the youngest of my brothers, four years—almost to the day—older than me. And perhaps because he was the nearest in age to me, he’d been the one I was closest to growing up. Abe had a soft, mushy heart he’d hid under a surly, teenage boy attitude. He was great with his hands, an out-of-the-box kind of thinker, but he struggled in school, never making the grades our brothers did.
He and Dad fought constantly. Dad called him lazy and unambitious. When Abe graduated (still not quite sure how that happened) and decided to forego college for a job working at an auto shop in Houston, Dad was livid. The accident was the last straw. The fight between them that night was huge, the things they said to each other, things that couldn’t be unsaid. Painful things. The next morning when I woke, Abe was gone.
One day, I had my brother, one of my best friends, and the next, he wasn’t there. He never came back.
Oh, we talked on the phone. Sometimes I even got him to send a photo, or video-chat with me. In Colorado now, he was doing well for himself. He was part owner of a successful auto shop. He seemed happy, and I was happy for him.
But he hadn’t spoken to our parents in eleven long years or been back to Two Harts. He’d missed birthdays and holidays and celebrations and hugs from our mom. He hadn’t even come home when Grandma Grace died a year ago.
We talked about most things in our lives. I knew about the girlfriends he’d had; he knew about Alec. Movies, music, TV shows, pet peeves, almost anything, except for the accident. Neither of us ever brought that up. But the guilt was like a living thing inside me.
“I think if it came from you, he might seriously consider it.”
My pulse thumped in my ears; sweat gathered at the back of my neck. “I’m not sure this is a good idea.”
“He always had a hard time saying no to you.” He paused, clearing his throat. My big brother, who’d always had my back since I was a scrawny tagalong kid sister, had to look away before I saw the tears welling up. “I miss him, Ali. He should be there.”
“I miss him, too.” So much.
But Cal didn’t know the whole story. No one did. Abe wasn’t the reason for that accident, as everyone thought; I was.
FIVE
Note to self:
Remember that your best friend can read you like a book,
and as a librarian, she’s really, really good at reading.
Wednesday, two and a half weeks before the wedding
Next morning, I knocked on the library door a half hour before it opened, clutching a bag from our local bakery and two iced white chocolate coffees with whole milk because this was not the time to worry about calories and too much caffeine consumption.
The best part about working as a virtual assistant was the hours. The worst part about working as a virtual assistant was also the hours. I tended to start a project at the worst time (oh, say two in the morning after the adrenaline from extracurricular activities kept me from falling asleep) and get so wrapped up, stopping was an impossibility. Flash forward four hours later and I wake up to my cheek resting on the keyboard and fifty-seven pages of the letter X on my Word document.
Which is why it looks like I rolled right out of bed this morning. Because I did.