Secret Sister by Emelle Gamble

Author:Emelle Gamble [Gamble, Emelle]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9781619352513
Publisher: Soul Mate Publishing
Published: 2013-07-07T21:00:00+00:00

Chapter 14

Thursday, July 28, 6 p.m.

Nick

“I’m sorry, Zoë. That wasn’t a very good birthday party yesterday.”

Last night we had come home after the disaster at Simone’s and not said a word to one another, just went to bed. This morning she was gone before I awoke. When I got home from work I found her in her bedroom, sitting in the dark, staring into space.

My sister turned to me. “Don’t worry about the birthday, Nick. But you better start concentrating on yourself and getting past this shit. You can’t freak out every time someone mentions her, or when you see Roxanne.”

I rolled over on my stomach. I was lying on Zoë’s cluttered, unmade bed. Her pillow smelled like weed. “Are you smoking pot again?”

“No. Yes, a little. But don’t change the subject,” she replied. “Maybe you should go see Dr. Seth. He left a message a couple of hours ago, by the way. And I’d been thinking about calling him myself. You know he helped you deal with stuff once before.”

I shook my head. “I don’t need a shrink.”

“He’s not a shrink. Cathy said he’s more like a priest. Without the religious stuff.”

“No.” There was no point in talking to anyone about healing something that couldn’t be healed.

My little sister stared at me with four-hundred-year-old eyes. “You’re hurting, Nick. If you won’t go see Seth, why don’t you talk to Roxanne without freaking out? Get your feelings out in the open. Give her a chance to make amends.”

“Make amends?” I pictured Roxanne, how shockingly sad her expression looked when we spoke. But her pain didn’t engender any empathy in me, it just made me furious.

I slapped my hand against the mattress. “Jesus fuck, Zoë. Roxanne was wearing Cathy’s earring.”

“What? Which earrings?”

“Those turquoise earrings I got her last Christmas. Cathy was wearing them the day of the accident. The hospital must have given one of them to Roxanne by mistake.”

“And she thought it was hers because she doesn’t remember anything. Is that why you were so mad at Bradley? Because you thought Roxanne was being insensitive about Cathy’s jewelry?”

“I guess.” My face twitched.

“Did you get it back?”

“What?”

“Cathy’s earring. Did you get it back?”

I pictured Roxanne, her hand outstretched. “No. No, I didn’t get it back.”

“That’s pretty sad.” Zoë chewed on her lip for a moment. “Did Roxanne mention anything about what happened at the insurance guy’s office?”

“No.”

“Her mom must not have told her. She seemed so spacey and, I don’t know, lost at St. Anne’s the other day. I wonder if she should still be in the hospital.”

I don’t give a fuck. “She must be okay enough to go out drinking with Bradley. He was pretty lit. They were obviously partying. Short mourning period for some people.”

“We were partying, too,” Zoë said. “Bradley told me Roxanne asked him for information about everyone. Right before you came back to the table, Bradley said how strange it was to be with her, and that she seemed really different. Like she wasn’t the same person as before.

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