Page 42 of I’ll Be Watching You

I thought about how furious I’d be if it had been me.

“I’m sorry,” I said quietly. “I didn’t think.”

“Mom should have. Dad should have.”

“Mom was a mess. But that’s no excuse.”

“I just feel . . . separate. Like I’m on the outside looking in.”

“We’ll do better. We’re not perfect, but we try.”

“It’s too late.”

That stung. “Really? That’s pretty fatalistic.”

“I’m twenty-five. I’m an adult. I don’t need to be included in everything.”

“You know,” I said after a pause, “I was always a little jealous of you.”

Lu snorted. “Right.”

“I’m not bullshitting you. Smartest kid, prettiest kid, and you got Mom and Dad all to yourself for years.”

“So?”

“None of us had their undivided attention. We were all born one after the other. Bang, bang, bang. We fought for every second of their time. You didn’t have to. You just had it.”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“It does. They love you. You’ve always been their pride and joy.”

“They love all of us,” she said, brushing it off.

“And they should. We’re great. But you’ve never come second, Lu. Not to them.”

She didn’t respond for a long minute. I could feel her pulling away, and I hated it. But I also got it. Big families are messy. Loud. Full of strange hierarchies no one talks about until someone gets hurt.

“You’re all so close,” she whispered.

“Who?”

“You four.”

“We had to be. We shared a bathroom most of our lives. You know how many times I popped the lock on Jack while he was in the shower because I had to pee? He hated me for it.”

“That’s exactly it!” she said, using her hands to drive home the point. “You have all these funny, chaotic memories. I was just the kid on the sidelines. Shit. I guess I’m just feeling sorry for myself.”

“For what it’s worth,” I said, “you are the smartest of all of us. But more than that—you’re one of us. You’re an Angelhart. That’s never going to change.”

“Thank you,” she said softly. “I’m working on it.”

I wish I knew what to say or do to convince Luisa that she was wrong. Except . . . maybe she wasn’t completely wrong. She knew we all loved her, she knew she was an Angelhart, she was simply mourning not being part of a group we didn’t realize we had created. That wasn’t something I could fix overnight.

I glanced at the car dash. The digital clock showed 7:55. We’d gained an hour driving to California because Arizona didn’t participate in Daylight Savings Time, so it was only 6:55 p.m. San Diego time. Georgia lived on a side street without a lot of cross traffic.

Less than five minutes later lights turned down the street. I watched.

“That’s her,” I said when I saw the headlines disappear as the car turned onto her driveway. “Count to fifty, then we approach.”