13

I NEEDED SPACE. Privacy.

I needed to get out of Nash’s car and into my town house —without him following me.

“Payton, I’m worried about you.” Nash leaned across the console, causing me to press farther into the passenger seat. Too close. He brushed the back of his hand against my cheek. “Talk to me.”

He’d been kind enough to let me ride almost all the way home in silence, not even turning on the radio to search for mood music. What kind of mood was this, anyway? Near nervous breakdown? But now his desire to take care of me, to hover, had overtaken him, backing me into a corner.

“Nash, please . . .” I forced myself not to turn away from his touch.

“I love you. Let me help you.”

“This isn’t your issue. This . . . this is family stuff.”

He tried to hold my hand and I couldn’t hide how my fingers trembled. “Babe, you have to know that I want —”

“Please . . . I’m not up to talking.” I twisted my hand away from his, searching for the keys in my purse. My front door was mere steps away. Behind it —silence. Darkness. Isolation.

And please, no Pepper.

“Why do you keep shoving me away?” Nash fell back against the seat, providing me a little extra room.

“We’re doing this now?” I sucked in a breath, and the faint scent of ammonia stung my nose. Where was that odor coming from?

“I didn’t know we had to ‘do’ anything.” Nash leaned forward, his hands gripping the steering wheel. “I thought we were in a relationship —a relationship with a future. Something permanent.”

“Did I ever say that?” I fumbled with the door handle.

“Payton, we’re good together —you have to see that.”

“What I see is you jumping to conclusions about us based on what you want. When have I indicated that I want more in our relationship?”

Why was he pushing me now? When he acted like this, he seemed no different from Johanna. Determined to get his way. Ignoring my feelings. Steamrolling over what I was saying because he knew better.

Why hadn’t I seen this before? I thought Nash cared, really cared about me, but his words —the way they clutched and clawed for more —seemed to rake against my skin.

“Have you been listening to anything I’ve said the last few months?” Nash’s voice rose as if he could convince me by talking louder, faster. “I’m not just fooling around here. . . .”

Now I almost wished Johanna were here. Talk about making a situation about himself. I pushed the door open, the smoky scent from someone’s chimney wafting into the car. “Thank you for the ride home, Nash. And thank you for making it easy to say this. We’re done.”

“What?” Nash bolted out of the car, not bothering to close his door. “You don’t mean that. You’re just stressed —”

“Yes, I’m stressed —and if you really understood that, you wouldn’t be talking about you . . . me . . . us —any of this.” I hiked my purse over my shoulder, the keys cutting into the palm of my hand. “I’m done. And not just for tonight. We’re done.”

When Nash grabbed me by the arm, I whirled around, reeling off-balance for a moment as the ground rolled beneath my feet. In my brittle state, he might as well have slapped me. “Do not touch me. I said I was done and I meant it.”

“You’re being irrational.”

“Fine. I’m irrational. And I still meant what I said. We’re over.” Nash would not touch me again. He was always grasping for more . . . always wanting things from me that I just couldn’t give him.

My hands were shaking so badly that it took three tries to even get the key into the lock.

“Payton —”

I stumbled backward after slamming the door. Some people might say shutting the door on Nash was unfeeling, even harsh. Not true. It was more an act of desperation than one of cruelty, coupled with the hope that separating myself from him would also stop the tingling in my hands, the tightening in my throat.

The hope that my world would right itself again.

I kicked off my shoes, leaving them in front of the door. Threw my purse on the couch, causing a pillow to fall to the floor. Ignored how Nash pounded on the front door.

“I’m going to bed.” The words, spoken out loud, tumbled into the darkness. “I’m going to bed —to sleep.”

I marched up the stairs to my bedroom, into the continued shifting shadows caused by the play of streetlights and moonlight coming through the window. There was no need to turn on any lights. I knew my way around the house and had no fear of bumping into an end table or wall. As far as furniture was concerned, my house took minimalist to the level of Spartan. It wasn’t about determining which things brought joy in life. I just didn’t care, paring my belongings to the bare necessities.

If only I could maintain control of my emotions, but I couldn’t seem to will myself to be okay. Instead, my thoughts careened into one another, knocking me off-balance.

I fell across the bed, curling my knees up to my chest, pulling the corner of the blanket across my body, burrowing my face into the pillow. “Don’t bother me, Pepper. I don’t want to see you. I just want to sleep. . . .”

My words were muffled, but surely if my sister lurked nearby, she’d obey my demand and leave me alone.

“It looks nice, doesn’t it?”

I turned in a half circle, trying to get my bearings. Why was I always trying to figure out where I was? Where Pepper was? “What? What looks nice?”

“The jersey. I like where they hung it.”

Pepper stood, her back to me, hands on her hips, staring up at her framed volleyball jersey that now hung over a row of bleachers on the north side of the gym. “Me. Zachary Gaines. Pete Jenkins. Paula Ferrell . . . Who knew back then we’d all be celebrated by the high school? Of course, I’m the only one whose number was retired. Couldn’t have gotten all those records without the team.”

That was my sister. Somehow she could manage to sound humble even when she bragged on herself. I nudged her in the ribs. “Hey! You’re wearing your jersey.”

“So? This is a dream, right? They hang one up, I can still wear one.”

“Um, okay. No one’s ever told me the rules.” Not that I ever anticipated the whole see-my-twin-sister-in-dreams scenario. “I’m sorry.”

“What are you sorry for?”

So much . . . so much. “I’m sorry I didn’t hold it together for the ceremony today.”

“Oh, I know you were never the public speaker, Pay. It’s okay.”

“I let you down.”

“I’m not mad.”

“You’re not?”

At last Pepper turned and faced me. “I would say life is too short . . . but really, it’s too long for me to stay mad at you. Johanna’s the tally keeper, not me.”

“You saw all that in the locker room?”

“No —I’m not playing some sort of spiritual spying game on you. I just figured Johanna hasn’t changed. Has she?”

“No. No, she hasn’t.”

“But you have.”

What was I supposed to say to that? “Well, of course I have. I’m older and —”

“Wiser?”

No. “Why are you here, Pepper?”

“You know why.”

“If I knew the answer, I wouldn’t be asking the question. Am I some female version of Scrooge?”

“A Christmas Carol? Really? You know I only liked the Muppet version of that story. And I never believed in ghosts.”

“I don’t want to talk about what you believe in.”

“You don’t?”

“Were you right?”

“Was I right about what?”

“Never mind . . . It doesn’t matter.”

“But you asked. . . .”

I asked, but did I really want to know? Did I want to get into who was right and who was wrong? “Are you happy, Pepper?”

“It’s not about happiness, Payton. It’s about truth.”

“So are you happy because you knew the truth?”

My sister paced the gym floor. “You’re not asking the right questions —”

“And you are? Asking me about why I don’t have a dog or a cat? Why I’m vegan?”

“I’m just trying to catch up with you, that’s all. To get to know you again.”

“Maybe you’re not asking the right questions, either.” There. Two could play that game.

“Fair enough. What were you and Zachary Gaines talking about?”

Any question but that. “Nothing.”

“Oh, Pay. Don’t lie to me.”

The look in her eyes stopped me short from uttering a flippant remark. “I don’t want to talk about Zachary Gaines.”

“What do you want to talk about?”

“Nothing. Really, nothing at all. It’s been too long.”

“There you go, lying to me again —”

“And what makes you such an expert on my life all of a sudden?” If only I could figure out how to walk out of this dream. “Ten years. Ten years I’ve been living all of this by myself. Figuring this out all by myself . . . I’m fine, Pepper. Fine. Just leave it alone, will you, please?”

“That’s been working for you all these years?”

“Yes. Yes, it has.”

“I don’t believe you —and you don’t either.”

“Go away, Pepper. Just . . . go away.”

My eyes flared open and I stared into the darkness.

I’d done it. I’d ended the conversation. Walked away from my sister.

Victory carved a hollow space in my chest where my heart should have been, my breath seeming to whistle through my lungs. The last time I’d won an argument with my sister, I’d killed her.