Rory was born with an affliction I like to call spontaneous hugging syndrome. Whenever someone does something really nice for her, she can't help but throw her arms around them in a wild embrace. This affliction is one of my favorite things about her. Often I find myself conspiring to do something nice just so I can trigger her hug reflex.

Today I’m using the excuse of our four-month anniversary. I ordered her a custom nightgown bearing an image of her head on Britney Spears’s body and Justin Timberlake kissing her cheek. Rory is mildly obsessed with Justin Timberlake. I like to pretend it makes me jealous, but I actually find it pretty fucking adorable. I guess I’m also hoping this surprise will detract from the fact that it’s the four-month-and-one-day anniversary of the day Hallie died.

I open the front door of the apartment and call out, “Honey, I’m home!” But there’s no answer.

I head past the kitchen toward the bedroom, my mind immediately concocting the worst-case scenario. Reaching the bedroom door, I open it slowly and find Rory curled up on the bed with her laptop open next to her. The blanket clutched in her fist, her auburn hair tumbling over her face. I would let her continue sleeping, but I know she’ll feel even more awful if she doesn’t finish whatever homework she was working on before she fell asleep.

I set the package containing the nightgown on the foot of the bed, then I take a seat on the edge of the mattress next to Rory. “Baby, wake up.” I give her shoulder a light squeeze and she lets out a soft groan. “Rory, are you okay?”

I reach forward to push the hair out of her face and she shoves my hand away. “Don’t touch me.”

“What’s wrong?” I should probably be asking her, What did I do this time?

She sits up and her eyes find the package wrapped in silver paper, but she doesn’t look pleased. “Celebrating something?”

I don’t bother responding. I know this is a jab at my attempt to distract her from yesterday’s anniversary. Most of the time, Rory is too smart for her own good. She can spot my hidden motives before I act on them. Most of the time, but not always.

“I just wanted to give you something that might cheer you up. It’s a cheesy gift. You can toss it out if you don’t want it.”

“Cheer me up?” She glares at me and I know today is going to be a bad day. “You want me to cheer up, Houston, then how about you let me have a night out with my friends! Oh, no, you can’t do that because the only friend I ever had is dead.” She slams her laptop shut and kicks the gift onto the floor as she slides off the bed. “With no fucking explanation.”

My heart clenches with guilt, but I follow closely behind her as she heads for the bathroom. “It’s okay to be angry.”

“I’m not angry. I’m furious.”

She opens the medicine cabinet and immediately reaches for a bottle of allergy medicine, the one she uses when she can’t sleep.

“It’s okay to be furious, too. Everyone deals with death differently.”

She dumps eight pills out of the bottle into the palm of her hand, then she turns to me with a wicked smile. “Everyone deals with death differently? Like the way some people choose to not deal with it at all?”

I resist the urge to lash out at her. “You can’t take that many, Rory.”

She glances at the tiny pink pills in her hand. “Well, the six I took earlier didn’t keep you from waking me up.”

“Rory, this is not the way to handle this.”

“Fuck you! Who are you to tell me how to handle it when all you do is ignore it? She killed herself, Houston. She killed herself and she didn’t have the decency to tell anyone why.” Her hands begin to tremble as the tears stream down her cheeks and the pills fall into the sink. “Sometimes I hate her.”

“Don’t say that.”

She grips the edge of the sink tightly, her shoulders leaping with each chest-racking sob. “I do. I hate her.”

“Don’t you fucking say that.”

“Why?” she mewls. “I just want to know why.”

The words in Hallie’s suicide note scroll through my mind like closing credits in a movie. I could end Rory’s misery right now if I wanted to, and I do. I hate seeing her suffer like this. But my baby sister confided her darkest secret to me in that suicide note and I will never betray her.

“You don’t hate her,” I say, stepping forward to place my hand on the small of her back.

She smacks my arm. “Why can’t you just let me feel the way I want to feel?”

“How would she feel if she heard you say that?”

She turns her head to face me, her mouth gaping wide with shock. “Are you serious? Hallie can’t hear, because she’s dead, Houston. She’s fucking dead.”

“Stop that.”

“What are you gonna do? Are you gonna hit me?”

I clench my jaw to keep myself from calling her all the foul names racing through my mind. “Stop it, Rory.”

She places her hands on my chest, probably to push me, but I grab her wrists to stop her.

“I said stop it. Stop acting like a fucking child.”

She laughs as she tries to free her wrists from my grip. “Is that what I am to you? A fucking child? Is that why you love getting my underage ass drunk so you can fuck me?”

I glare at her for a moment, a million insults about her sexual inexperience teasing the tip of my tongue. Instead, I let go of her wrists and leave the bathroom.

“Where are you going?” she shouts as she follows me. “Going to get drunk and fuck another underage piece of ass?”

“Fuck you.” I’m almost at the front door when she lands a hard shove in the center of my back. I round on her, grabbing both her elbows. “I told you to fucking stop it! That’s enough!”

Her hazel eyes are wide with fright, but she’s not ready to back down. “What are you gonna do?”

Our chests are heaving as we stare into each other’s eyes and that’s when I know there’s no one in this world who will ever understand me like Rory. She knows I’d never hurt her. She knows she can rail against my sister and I’ll still want nothing and no one but her. Because no one but me knows how brightly the pain burns inside her.

I let go of her elbows and tangle my fingers in her hair as I crush my lips against hers. I grab a fistful of hair at the crown of her head and tug. She whimpers as she reaches for the button of my jeans. Our mouths nip at each other clumsily as we frantically undress each other.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers.

I shush her as I lift her naked body onto the kitchen table. Her legs coil around my hips and I hook my arm tightly around her waist as I slide into her. She moans and the sound sends a chill through me.

“God, I fuckin’ love you.”

She whimpers as I thrust my cock deeper inside her.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispers a few more times, until I kiss her to silence her apologies.

She moans into my mouth and the sound is so damn beautiful it sends a shiver through me. I pull my head back and grasp her jaw in one hand so I can look her in the eye as I slide my other hand between her legs.

She gasps. “Oh, God, Houston.”

I stroke her firmly as I move in and out of her until I feel her muscles spasming around my cock. I pull out of her and get down on one knee so my head is between her legs. Then I slide two fingers inside her as my mouth devours her swollen clit.

Her legs squirm and she screams my name with ecstasy. When I slide into her again, I feel as if I might collapse from the pure euphoria of being inside her. She grabs my face and kisses me hard, but I can hear her cries have changed. I tilt my head back to look at her face and she’s on the verge of sobbing. I sweep her hair away from her eyes and I move slowly in and out of her as I kiss each of her eyelids.

“It’s okay,” I assure her and her legs coil tighter around me, her arms squeezing me closer. “It’s okay, baby.”

“I love you,” she whispers in my ear as I come inside her. “So much it scares me.”

I kiss the tip of her nose, then lean my forehead against hers. “You don’t have to be afraid… I’ll never leave you.”