Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 75663 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 378(@200wpm)___ 303(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75663 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 378(@200wpm)___ 303(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
“Who did it? That makes you bad too!” Lane objected.
“Wait, when did you do this?” Dad asked.
“Twice!” I added. “Because he was always daydreaming about painting.”
“Isaac used to get drunk at field parties almost every weekend.”
“Lane smoked pot in the attic because it helped him with his creativity.”
“Only a couple of times!” Lane shot back.
“It was really Lane who—”
“You wouldn’t,” Lane cut me off. I cocked a brow at him. Oh yes, I really would. “Isaac is totally the best son!”
“Wait. What did he do? This sounds like something I need to know,” Helena told us.
Lane and I locked gazes, a smile passing between us, this lightness in the air that hadn’t been around us in far too long, and we both busted into laughter at the same time. It was always like this with him. He made me think I felt good even when I didn’t. My gut began to ache, but I couldn’t stop. Lane couldn’t stop laughing either, covering his mouth because he’d always been insecure about a tiny chip in one of his front teeth. I loved it. I told him it gave him character, and he always said he would get it fixed but never had.
Dad and Helena joined in, no one eating, just happiness and laughter all around us. Jayden watched us for a moment, looking totally lost, like this kind of thing was so foreign to him, but then he tried to join in, tried to pretend he was in this moment with us too.
When we finally settled down, Helena said, “I really want to know what Lane did.”
I playfully made the my-lips-are-sealed gesture.
“Let the boys have their secrets, dear,” Dad told her. Secrets. That word sobered me up. I was so goddamned full of them, wasn’t I?
This time, I didn’t let it show. I was again the Isaac who held everything inside. Who grinned when he was supposed to and played the role of someone who had everything together.
I winked at Lane. “I’m packing that away for when I really need it. You better be nice to me, or I’m going to tell on you.”
“I hate you.”
“You love me,” I countered. In the way he was supposed to, not in the way I wished he would.
CHAPTER FIVE
Lane
It was late, but after dinner, Jayden had some work calls to make. He went into the backyard. While doing dishes, I watched him speaking and pacing back and forth beneath a tree with huge weeping branches that I’d always loved. I’d drawn that tree more times than I could say. I’d drawn Isaac in that tree too.
There was definitely something going on with him. I didn’t know if it was more than just me not telling him about my sexuality, but I had a feeling it was. Work? Men? Was it just one of those times in Isaac’s life when he was a little sadder than usual but tried to hide it?
Jayden was now alternating between speaking animatedly and listening, and my gaze traveled away from him, to the far corner of the yard.
I remembered sitting there the day our parents got married. I was drawing them, but then I’d looked up and seen Isaac in his window, watching…hurting. I began sketching him instead, his eyes, where I could see his loneliness even from the distance. He’d always been an enigma to me. He was the smartest person I knew. The funniest as well. He lit up every room he went into and oozed confidence, but he also had a bone-deep pain I hadn’t seen until I watched him through the glass.
And in that moment, when Isaac thought no one saw him…I did. Completely. The real him, not the facade. It was silly, and probably didn’t make any sense, but that had been the moment I’d felt I really knew him…and I’d wanted to know him. Had wanted to be close to him and discover his secrets and how someone like him could be so many things at once. I’d been fascinated with Isaac from then on, looked up to him, even though only two months separated us in age.
I’d never felt as lost from him as I did now, with no clue how to get it back or even if I should try. It was likely the natural course of life. We were thirty years old. It wasn’t like when we were kids.
“He’s nice,” Mom said from behind me.
“Yeah, he is.” And he was, most of the time. Jayden could be a little spoiled, but that wasn’t so bad.
“He’s different than what I expected for you.”
“Because he’s a man and you didn’t know?”
I risked a glance at her, and she shook her head. “No. I’m hurt you didn’t feel you could tell me, but that’s not it. I can’t really put it into words. He’s into art like you, but he talks about it in a different way. He doesn’t seem as…easy as you are? It’s hard to explain. But he’s nice, and if you’re happy, I’m happy.” When I didn’t respond right away, she asked, “Are you?”