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"Maybe he's not ready," I defend Kyle.
Matt sets the newspaper down and leans forward. "I don't care if he's ready. She's living on borrowed time, Jen. According to her doctors, she has less than five months left. She shouldn't be worrying about making amends with Kyle. She should be enjoying every second she has with us. She can't do that because my idiot brother is fucking stubborn."
I let out a defeated breath. "He's not ready."
"When my mom pulled that stunt with her client, the one that murdered his wife, I was pissed off, too," he reveals.
"Wait," I sit up straighter. "You know about that?"
Matt nods his head. "I'm not stupid. I knew there was a reason she wasn't coming home at night. Why she had to stay in Denver to work on the case when she could have done it from home. It was pretty obvious when she bought my dad a plane ticket to go visit my grandparents. That's when she had the abortion. I was the one who found her on the toilet, bleeding all over the god-damned place. I cleaned her up. I put her back to bed, Jen. She told me it was a bad period, but I knew."
My shoulders sag. "Why didn't you say anything?"
Matt shrugs. "What good would it have done? She wanted everything to go back to normal and Kyle wasn't talking to her. My dad wouldn't have left her, even if he knew. It was just easier to pretend it never happened. That we were still a happy family."
"Does Kyle know?"
"He does now."
I rub my hands over my face. "I don't know what to do, Matt. I've tried talking to him, but he just shuts me down. Tells me there's nothing left to say to her. I'm afraid if he doesn't talk to your mom, make peace with what happened, he's going to regret it."
Matt looks down at his shoes, fumbles with a loose string hanging off his shirt. "Maybe we can't force him, Jen. Maybe he can't do it for us. He has to do it for himself."
I sit back in the chair, rub my hands over the stiff armrests. "What happens if he doesn't? If he decides he doesn't want to hear her out?"
Matt's dark eyes meet mine. "It's going to destroy him."
—
I knock on the door of Kyle's office before sticking my head inside. He's sitting at his desk, on the phone, motions for me to enter. I take a seat across from him and take a look around the room. It's pretty sparse except for a fake plant in the corner and the black and white picture of me on the beach last summer hanging on the wall.
My heart is pounding wildly in my chest as I wait for him to get off the phone. I don't know what I'm going to say. What he needs to hear. How to approach this without him getting angry or upset or pissed off.
I just know I want him to be OK. I need him to be OK.
When he hangs up the phone, he stands up and walks around to the front of his desk, leans back against it, crosses his arms over his chest.
My hands instantly start sweating.
"How was class?"
I smile up at him, try to steady my voice. "Good. We mostly went over the syllabus and then he let us go."
"Did you want to grab lunch? I think Matt's still here."
"Kyle, we need to talk. About your mom."
He peers down at me, his jaw clenching. I can see the storm brewing in his dark eyes.
And, for the first time, I'm terrified we might not survive the torrential rain, the whipping winds, the lightning and thunder...
Chapter 44
I remember our first real fight. It was the summer after the Thompsons moved from Washington state to our little mountain town.
11 year-old Matt and I were sprawled out on the couch in the Thompson's living room after an intense game of basketball. We were watching Matt's second favorite Pokémon movie, which we picked up for a steal at a garage sale a few weeks prior. It was in a bin with other used DVDs. Matt practically screamed like a girl when he came across it. We paid the lady a quarter and had watched it every afternoon since we bought it.
"Bulbasaur is so cool," Matt commented.
