Page 24 of My Unfinished Heart

“How’s he doing?”

Tristan braces his hands on the countertop behind him. The movement broadens his chest and shoulders, stretching his shirt tight over his nipples. I do my best not to look directly at them, so I can’t say for sure, but my first thought is piercings. I think his nipples might be pierced, and that is truly not what I need to be thinking about when I’m asking about my brother.

“Better. He’s really determined. In terms of all the things pissing him off right now, the fact that he’s got a limp is probably the top of the list.”

“Not me?” I try not to sound so surprised.

Tristan gives me half an understanding grin as he crosses his legs at the ankles. “You’re in the top five, but I actually don’t think you even made the top three.”

“I guess that’s good?”

“If it helps, he’s angry about everything. And he’s got every right to be. Second stage of grief, you know?”

I nod. I do know. “I’m glad he has you.”

“He’s not a huge fan of me right now, either, but like I said, I don’t blame him.”

“Why? What’d you do?”

Tristan shrugs. “I have parents. Two functioning legs. And I’m moving away at the end of summer.”

“Right. Where are you going to school?”

“Houston,” he says without elaborating.

I shrug. “Quick drive. Could be worse.” I add this to my own list of reasons to keep my eyes on his face and not his chest, but his face is no picnic to look at either. It’s a series of paintings waiting to happen. Oil on canvas. Shadow and light. I don’t consider myself bad looking—I’ve been told often enough in the last few years that I’m not, but next to Tristan, I’d only call myself average. Basic.

“It’s terrible timing,” Tristan says as he lets go of the counter and looks toward the door that leads out of the kitchen to the driveway alongside the house.

“Yeah. I guess.” I gesture toward the door and say, “After you.” Because with the two of us talking in this kitchen, it’s starting to feel too much like a place I could call home.

I head back to Seattle the first week of July, not to stay, but to pack, among other things. While I’m there, I turn twenty-four, accept an offer on the Pecos house, quit my job, gather up all my clothes, papers, and art supplies, and break up with Carrie.

That last thing is kind of a low point.

She and I have exchanged a few more texts and calls since I’ve been in Austin, mostly regarding the fact that I wasn’t sure when I’d come back to Seattle. I didn’t tell her about the deaths in the family, the inheritance, or really anything else. And she never asked. It was more like:

Still out of town?

Yep.

Bummer. Let me know when you’re headed home.

Will do.

All that aside, she takes the news that I’m moving away harder than I expect her to. All I say is I’m leaving for a year, and she turns it into a massive breakup with tears and a slammed door. When I’d told Tristan she wasn’t “that kind of girlfriend” I thought Carrie took our relationship as casually as I did. Monogamous friends with benefits. That wasn’t the case for her, apparently, so now I feel like the world’s worst asshole.

I’d hate myself, but she had to have realized at some point, in the two years we were hanging out together, I never promised a future, and I certainly never told her I loved her. I know better than to do attachments like that. They’ll burn you up and hollow you out as soon as you let yourself start hoping. I learned my lesson on that a long time ago while standing in front of a real fire watching my most precious thing go up in flames. I also realized a long time ago that this thing other people have that keeps them connected to people—I’m missing that part.

Sometimes I think my own mother suffocated it out of me, but most of the time I wonder if she only hurt me because she already knew that part of me was missing. Maybe the assembly line was going too fast the day God made me. Maybe he didn’t see me. Or maybe he just thought I wasn’t worth the effort. And I resent Him for that among other things on the days I bother to believe in him at all.

On July 15th, I move into the Mountain View house my father intended for himself. I have plenty of things I need to do there to make it more liveable, but my main priority when I get back to town is clearing out the other house. I want this to be a hugely cathartic exercise, but it isn’t. At all. Mainly because Tristan is with me when I do it.

Here’s how that happens. My intention is to offer Connor a chance to pack up his own room and decide what to do with his stuff, but he won’t respond to my texts or calls. Determined to do the right thing, I text Tristan.

I need Connor to call me. Time to pack up the old place.

He responds almost instantly.