Page 83 of You Met Me There

“She’s upstairs. I’ll keep the boys down here so they don’t bother you.”

Luke’s hand falls away, and he takes my camera bag from my shoulder as I place my foot on the first step toward the bedrooms. I haven’t had a reason to go upstairs before, so heading up the staircase to uncharted territory makes my chest twist into knots. I wish the knots were cute ribbons, like the ones on kite tails, but the one inside my body is a tangled lump that threatens to squeeze the air from my lungs.

Not cute at all.

My feet reach the landing, and I can already tell which room is Juliet’s without even looking at the other rooms stretching down the hall. The white door on my right sits ajar, offering me a view of a brown dresser with framed wedding photos arranged on top and a potted snake plant that sits on the floor by the window looking out at the lake below.

I poke my head in, rapping my knuckles softly against the door. I hear sniffling, like Juliet’s been crying, and then she calls out, “Come in.”

When I push the door open, I’m met with a large bed in the center of the room—upon which Dax lies with his head perked as he watches me enter—and a vanity against the far wall. Jules sits in front of the mirror in a plush white robe that looks old and worn, her hair pulled into a claw clip and a makeup brush in her hand like I’ve interrupted her blush application.

“Oh, it’s you,” she says, not unkindly. Her voice falls tiredly as the carpet muffles the sounds of my footsteps. “I didn’t know you were here yet.”

She doesn’t turn around, only watching me in the reflection of the round mirror before her.

“Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all?” I recite. It’s terrible timing to try to be funny, but I want to make her laugh.

She doesn’t.

“We both know that’s always been you,” she points out, swiping the makeup brush across her cheekbones.

“That’s not true,” I say back.

She hums, a dismissal of my words, and I sit on the edge of her bed. The flowery comforter shines yellow, a bright smack of sunshine that contrasts with the glum mood in the room. Dax crawls toward me on his belly, pressing his wet black nose into the side of my leg. I pet the soft white fur behind his neck and scratch under his chin.

“Sorry I wasn’t ready when you got here,” Jules says, speaking to me through the mirror. She puts the blush applicator on the vanity and reaches into a drawer, pulling out a tube of mascara.

“That’s okay. I know family photo days are rough. Everyone’s usually late, so I’m used to it. Plus, you get a pass because you’re my sister.”

Her hands drop to her lap. “No, I don’t mean today. I mean the day you came to Maple Lake.”

I frown. “What do you mean?”

“I wasn’t ready,” she states. She says it so simply, like I should know what she means.

“Ready for what?”

Her eyes leave the mirror, and she turns in her plush cream-colored chair to look at me. “I wasn’t ready for you to come back.”

My brows sink, much like the rock in my stomach. “But I thought you were waiting for me. Isn’t that what you said?”

She bites at her lower lip. “I’ve waited for you all these years, yeah.” She shrugs. “But I lost hope of you coming back and didn’t expect anymore that it would actually happen. I was caught off guard.”

I scan her teary brown eyes. “Do you have to keep your guard up?” I ask softly, wondering if she’ll ever really let it down for me.

Her brown eyes, exactly like our dad’s, search mine in earnest. “I don’t know how to let it down.”

Her sincerity cuts me to the core—honest, raw, letting me in. But it also hurts because I did this to her. I made her unable to trust people, especially those she should have been able to trust the most.

“I meant what I said in my text, Jules. I’m not leaving like I did before,” I say. “You were right that I don’t live here and that I have to go back to Florida. That’s where I live and where I work. But I’ll come back to visit all the time. I’ll call and FaceTime, I’ll even send you emails and postcards, and you’ll be so annoyed by me that you’ll wish I hadn’t come back at all.”

A choked sound escapes her, and when she smiles, I realize with relief that she’s laughing. Sliding off the bed, I move to her side, kneeling by her chair and taking her hands in mine.

I forge ahead. “I’m sorry my leaving ever made you stay here to wait for me. I’m sorry I didn’t say goodbye. And I’m so, so sorry I didn’t keep in touch with you or anyone else.” My voice breaks, and when I feel a tickle on my cheek, I know I’m crying. “I was stupid, Jules. I was young, and I didn’t see what I had here—that it was all so good. I felt like Maple Lake was too small, that I was never going to get to see the world if I didn’t grab my one chance to leave. I know it sounds dumb to someone who loves it here, but I always felt like it was a circus—all the tourists coming to see our home and then leaving again like we weren’t worth staying for. I felt like this old place would always be a circus, just another tourist trap. I looked for a way out, and Luke was everything I could have hoped for at the time.”

I sink back on my heels, my shoulders drooping. Jules watches me intently as I continue to talk. “Luke and I have a lot to work through, but we’re doing better. I can only ask, and hope, that you’ll let me work on this too.” I point a finger between the two of us. “All these years I needed my sister more than I knew, like I need you now.”

I think of the nightmares, of being lost with no way home. And for a second I let myself imagine the relief I may have when I’m no longer scared to move forward.