Ayla

I leave Rhett’s in the morning, when the sun is barely over the tops of the skyscrapers. He appeared to be sleeping when I woke, and I didn’t want to disturb him because I know he tossed and turned most of the night.

So did I.

When I grabbed the book off the coffee table, I had no idea it was an album filled with photos of Damiana, but once I started paging through, I couldn’t stop. She was so beautiful. They looked so happy together, so perfect.

What she saw in my brother, I’ll never understand. Maybe she was one of those girls who liked the asshole guys because they’re convinced they can change them? It’s like a game. I knew girls like that in college. The bigger the asshole, the bigger the challenge. The bigger the challenge, the greater the reward. They never even liked the guys, it was all about scaling that impossible mountain and making the heartless playboy fall in love long enough for them to give them a taste of their own medicine.

Plus, what girl doesn’t want to be the one that got away? The girl he thinks about when he’s with the next girl and the next?

I suppose some of us just have a little more restraint than others.

Anyway, I hope Rhett forgives me for looking through his photos.

It was an honest mistake.

I stop and grab coffee on the way home, using the Dean and Deluca gift card Rhett got me, and as soon as I step out of the store, my mother calls.

“It’s four AM there, what are you doing up?” I ask when I answer.

“Couldn’t sleep,” she says. “Sitting down for some coffee before I take the dog for a walk.”

“Why couldn’t you sleep?”

“Just one of those nights,” she says with a sigh. “I miss you. When are you coming home? It gets lonely without you around here, telling me what to read every day.”

“I still forward you articles to read,” I say. “Only difference is I’m three thousand miles away, not thirteen miles across town.”

“Well your absence is certainly noticeable,” she says. “Even the dog misses you. She’s been carrying around one of your old t-shirts lately.”

“I’ll come home soon,” I promise. “Tell Daisy I miss her too. I’ll check flights when I get back to the apartment. I’ll book the first reasonably priced one I can find. Who knows, maybe I’ll be home in a couple of days?”

“Everything going well out there?”

“Yeah,” I say, sipping my cooling coffee. “We had a charity skate-a-thon thing last night at the rink. Had a pretty good turn out. I’m meeting with Bryce’s attorney on Monday to go over his last will and testament.”

“Oh, you haven’t done that yet?”

“Nope. Been finishing my book and setting up this hockey foundation. I figure whatever’s in his will is going to add onto my massive to-do list, so I’ve been putting it off.”

“Do you need me to come out there, help you with some things?” she offers.

“I’ll be okay, Mom.”

“You know I will if you need me to.”

“I know.”

She’s silent on the other end for a beat or two, like there’s something she needs to get off her chest.

“You sound sad,” she says, exhaling.

“I’m not sad.”

“Oh, sweetheart, of course you are. You never got to meet your brother. That’s enough to make anyone sad. I know how much he meant to you.”

“He only meant something to me because at the time, I was a geeky thirteen-year-old with braces and frizzy hair and no friends, and the only thing I wanted in the whole entire world was a cool older brother because I was convinced it would solve all my problems.”

“I remember finding all those letters.” She clucks her tongue, her words drifting into silence. “You wrote him hundreds of letters. It was the sweetest thing.”

“Whatever happened to those anyway?”

“I sent them.”

I stop in my tracks, nearly causing the man on the sidewalk behind me to pummel into me. He utters a string of swear words and sidesteps me.

“You sent them ... where?” I ask.

“I mailed them to Bryce.”

“Oh, god. When?”

“Oh, it must have been five, six years ago.” She chuckles.

“Why would you do that?” I swear, I love my mom, but I’ve yet to encounter a single person on this planet as random and ridiculous as she is.

“It was after his father had passed,” she says. “I sent him a letter about you. I gave him all your contact information. Photos. Your name and birthdate. I told him like it or not, he had a sister, and that he was doing himself a huge disservice by leaving you out of his life. And then I included the letters because I felt they chronicled one of the hardest years of your life, and I wanted him to see the effect he had on you.”

These letters were all written after his initial rejection of me. Some of the letters even addressed that rejection. But at the close of each one, I always signed it, “I love you anyway. Your sister, Ayla.”

So this must be how he knew my full name and date of birth, but it still doesn’t explain why he left me his life insurance money.

My eyes mist, and for the first time in my life, I think he might not have hated me as much as I believed he did.

Sadness sinks into me like a heavy weight, and I find it harder and harder to trudge back to Bryce’s apartment knowing what I now know.

I need to get out of town for a while, even if it’s a few days.

“I’ll let you know about the flights, okay, Mom?” I say, my thumb hovering over the red button on my phone screen as I pull it away from my ear. My voice is breaking, and I don’t want her to hear it. I don’t wait for her response. I end the call and I amble back to the apartment, and as soon as I arrive, I book the first trip I can find that isn’t two thousand dollars.

It leaves on Tuesday.