It so wasn’t that. Yeah, it was dusty in here, but she’d been crying. I could tell by her puffy eyes.
“Going with the wholedust in my eyecop out?” I stood.
“Just leave it alone, Preach,” she said as she turned toward the desk she’d stopped by and started picking through whatever was in the box.
“Let’s see, I come in, find you on the floor, crying—”
“I wasn’t crying.”
“Yeah, keep telling yourself that. Anyway, I know you hate me, I get that, but when I see you crying and—”
“Drop it, please.” She sniffled, then wiped her hand over her eyes. “We’ve got a lot of work to do before Sunday’s sale.”
I walked up to the desk, then stepped to the side to see her face. “What is it?”
“Nothing, I said. Please just—”
“Just what? Shrivel up and die?”
“Son of a bitch.” She shoved the box to the side, and it fell to the floor. The contents spewed all over, and she kicked one of the books that’d landed near her foot.
“Grace!” I reached for her arm. “What’s going on?”
“You saydielike that. Like it’s just some random word!” She shook her head and spun out of my hold. “You can’t say shit like that!”
It felt like someone kicked me in the stomach.Her brother.
“Grace—”
“No. We…need to get to work. This place needs to be cleared out by the weekend.”
“That can wait.” I leaned against the desk, but she kept her back to me. “I’m sorry. I—your brother. I shouldn’t have said that.”
“Forget it. Just don’t. I can’t…”
“Did something happen?”
She slouched even more, and I was pretty sure I heard a hushed sob leak out of her. It was silent for a good minute, which felt like an hour, before she said, “This May…it’ll be a year.”
“Shit.” The anniversary of his death. When Brodie had gone through that with his mom’s passing it’d been rough.Reallyrough.
She drew in a deep breath and stood tall but still kept her back to me. “It’s so fucking hard.”
“I can imagine.”
“No, you can’t, Preach.” She whipped around. “You can’t even.”
“Not first hand, no,” I said. “But my best friend, Brodie. His mother died in an accident. I went through that with him. I know it’s nowhere near the same, but I kind of understand, at least from the outside looking in.”
Her eyes widened, then she quickly looked to the side as if the junk thrown across the floor were fascinating treasures. Her jaw tensed, and she cradled her injured hand to her chest.
A streak of anger coursed through me, at myself, for her injury. She had so much shit going on with that alone. And now a death anniversary.
A sudden desire to pull her into my arms swarmed over me. I hated how sad she was. I hated that she was struggling so much. The accident had thrown a wrench in everything. For both of us.
Silently, I started gathering up the junk and got to the yearbook she’d tossed. It was the one from 1982, and it was opened to the prom pictures.
I picked it up, then glanced at her. “This did it, didn’t it?”