So True

by Serena Bell

  Chiara’s eyes found Auburn’s. Auburn’s were filled with tears, and Chiara felt her own flood. Auburn reached out and clasped her hand, and Chiara hung on tight.

  “She almost didn’t consign it. But I convinced her to. Because it had bad memories attached to it.”

  “But here it is. Back in our lives anyway.”

  “It’s not the same dress,” Auburn said pragmatically, but Chiara could see her wavering.

  “I know, but…”

  Neither of them finished the thought, but Auburn’s face softened, tears overflowing, and Chiara knew her sister was thinking much the same thing that she was, that if the dress could have been resurrected, their mom would have wanted her to have it. To wear it and enjoy it and redeem it from the bad memories.

  Chiara went back into the dressing room, took off the dress, hung it up, and put her own clothes back on. She was tying her shoes when Auburn spoke from behind the thick drape.

  “Can I come in for a sec?”

  Chiara pushed the curtain aside and Auburn sat on the small soda fountain chair in the corner. She shifted uneasily. “I’m feeling like kind of an idiot, but I never really thought until now about how much you lost that year. More than any of the rest of us. Jax, and then Mom and Dad. All at once.”

  “Jax didn’t die,” Chiara said. But even as she said it, her throat tightened, and a memory came back to her. Lying awake in her bed and realizing that she would not have known if Jax had died. And even though he had broken her heart, she was overcome with grief that she could not even be sure that he was still in the world with her.

  Back then a world without Jax had still seemed like the worst thing the universe could throw at her.

  It wasn’t until months later that she understood how much bigger grief could be. And even so, when her parents died, she remembered that night in the dark and knew that Jax’s leaving had trained her for this new, infinitely worse loss.

  “No. But he abandoned you. They—they all did. Not that Mom and Dad meant to. But—that’s what happened. And you didn’t despair. You put one foot in the front of the other and you were there for me. For all of us. So I just want to say—I think you’re amazing. Brave.”

  Chiara discovered that she couldn’t speak. There were tears running down her face and her throat was clogged with remembered pain.

  “You guys okay in there?” Erin’s voice rang out from beyond the curtain.

  “We’re fine,” Chiara said, gathering herself.

  “I'm sorry. I didn’t mean to make you cry,” Auburn said. She was crying, too.

  Chiara laughed through her tears and swiped them away. “You called me amazing and brave. Of course I was going to cry.”

  “I love you.” Auburn opened her arms.

  “I love you, too.”

  They clung to each other for a long time. Then they tidied themselves as best they could and brought the dress out front for Erin to ring up.

  Willa and Vannah were waiting for them at the register, and they graciously pretended not to see the tear streaks and red eyes, which made Chiara love them even more than she already did. “You guys want to see some photos of what I’ve got in mind for decorations?” Willa asked.

  “Yes!” Chiara and Vannah said at the same time.

  Willa pulled out her phone and opened Pinterest. “What do you guys think about this?”

  The photos she’d pinned were beautiful—gold and cream, with fall-themed centerpieces. And the decor was simple, too—a lot of impact from just a few touches. “I love it,” Chiara said. “I know someone who might be willing to help, too. She’s a wedding planner, but I think she’d know how to get some of this stuff for cheap—or she might even have some stuff we could use.” She was thinking of Grace Utrecht, who’d done a couple of weddings at Cape House. Admittedly, Grace and Levi hated each other, but Chiara thought she could work out a deal with Grace that didn’t put the two of them in each other’s paths.

  Vannah tilted her head. “So if Jax is in town, does that mean he’s coming to the reunion?”

  Chiara had a moment of sharp panic before reality settled in. “He’ll be long gone by then.”

  Which would make the reunion dance an awful lot like prom—except this time, she wouldn’t be heartbroken and crying in a bathroom stall.

  “Too bad,” Vannah said. “Bad timing.”

  “No,” Chiara said, remembering. Remembering how she’d had to hold handfuls of silk up off the bathroom floor, how her makeup had run, how the night that was going to be the best of her life had turned into the worst. The last thing she needed was Jax, anywhere near another high school dance. “It’s great timing.”

  27

  He drove Evan from the hospital straight to Meeples.

  Evan refused his help getting out of the car, even though he looked, to Jax, exhausted. He walked up the short front path and stopped to admire the new sign.

  “I friggin’ love it,” he said.

  “Chiara designed it.”

  “She’s good. But you burned it, right?”

  “Sure, but that’s the easy part.”

  Evan rolled his eyes at that.

  “What?”

  “You never take credit for anything,” Evan said.

  “I take credit when I deserve credit.”

  “You do not.”

  “I take credit for what a great kid you’ve become.”

  “Well, that’s just bullshit,” Evan said. “I’m the only one who gets to take credit for that.”

  “Touché,” Jax said, grinning. “Close your eyes.” He stepped in front of Evan and opened the door of the shop. He wanted to see his brother’s face when he first looked inside.

  Chiara was behind the counter, tapping on her laptop. “Is he here?” she demanded.

  “Yup.”

  Evan stepped in behind him. For a split second his expression didn’t change at all, and Jax was terrified that he’d made a mistake.

  Then Evan burst into tears.

  Chiara ran out from behind the counter and they each got on one side of him and guided him to a seat at one of the tables. They sat next to him and let him cry for a while. Evan managed to form some words—all of gratitude—but mostly he just babbled, emotions too big for speech. And Jax totally got it. For one thing, Evan hadn’t cried at all, to his knowledge, the whole time he’d been in the hospital, even though he’d lost a sizable chunk of his very valuable small intestine. But for another, Jax felt like he was going to cry himself. Everything in his chest was just way too big for the space he’d allocated for it.

  Which was maybe too small, all things considered. Because between Chiara’s reaction and Evan’s, he felt like his heart had grown several sizes.

  “You guys,” Evan kept saying through his tears.

  When Evan stopped crying, they made him stay in his seat while they gave him a verbal tour of the shop. It was mostly Chiara, really. She explained everything that Jax had built and why he’d done it. She showed him how the table shelves pulled out and told him about the storage behind the front counter. Then she explained about the events she’d planned.

  “Holy shit,” he said. “You guys—I can’t—I can’t even.”

  Apparently, he meant it, because he didn’t even try to start another sentence for a few minutes. Then he said, “I feel like I don’t deserve this.”

  Chiara’s eyes met Jax’s. “You know what, Evan?” she said. “I don’t think most of us ever feel like we deserve the good things. But those good things came to you, despite that. They’re yours to accept and carry, same as the bad things.”

  That made Jax’s chest feel even less adequate to the size of his feelings. But it seemed to resonate with Evan. He said, “Okay,” like what she’d said made perfect sense to him. And then he sighed, like she’d eased something in his heart.

  Which in turn eased something in Jax’s.

  One thing he’d loved about her, back in the day, was that he hadn’t felt so much like he was alone in taking
care of Evan. She and her family had loved Evan with him, and that had made it easier. Not that Evan was a burden. But—

  It helped, having other people care for Evan, too.

  And he didn’t doubt that Chiara adored Evan. You didn’t do all the work she’d been doing as anything other than a labor of love.

  Unfortunately, it might not be enough.

  What neither of them had said to Evan—but it hung between them in the air, like something slightly rotten—was that it wasn’t working. Yesterday’s event had brought in sales, but not enough. Today’s traffic had been no better than two weeks ago on a Sunday, despite all the publicity Chiara had been trying to generate.

  He hadn’t wanted to say it to her, but he’d started to wonder if maybe the shop was just in the wrong place. Too secluded, back behind town, too off the beaten track. Walk-ins just weren’t seeing it.

  Regardless of why business wasn’t improving as much as they needed it to, neither of them wanted to break it to Evan right now. It was too much, too soon—and maybe Chiara, like Jax, was hoping that things would still magically turn around. Or that one of them would have a brilliant idea. Labor Day weekend was still two weeks off.

  It was suddenly occurring to Jax that maybe he wouldn’t be here to see the payoff of all their work.

  And shit, that felt all wrong.

  Evan looked exhausted. Totally wiped out.

  “Want me to take you home?” Jax asked.

  Evan looked around the store, then shook his head. “Can I stay here for a little while?” he asked.

  Jax couldn’t bring himself to say no, not when he knew exactly how Evan felt.

  28

  Monday morning, Chiara and Auburn went and got her car in Aberdeen. On the drive there, Chiara brought Auburn up to date on all the details she hadn’t shared with their friends the day before, and Auburn told Chiara how things were with Trey. Short version—good. Long version—Chiara felt a twinge of jealousy as Auburn told her just how good.

  Auburn had resisted becoming involved with Trey for a long time, but then she’d given in, and look how well things had turned out for her.…

  Which was not a good argument for stupid lust. It was not.

  Chiara had to repeat it a few more times to herself before she felt convinced.

  Twelve hundred dollars, a new head gasket, and a lot of wincing later, the sisters headed back to the beach in separate cars. Chiara listened to Freakonomics podcasts so she wouldn’t be tempted to imagine the kiss that hadn’t happened.

  That afternoon, after they’d both made it safely back to Tierney Bay, Chiara got a call on her cell from Greg Peppers at Buyathon. He was in a great mood. She had been dragging her ass around all afternoon, thinking about the store’s still-flabby sales and the fact that Jax was going to leave. Soon.

  “Greg!” she said, trying to sound like a call from him was the high point of her day. Because it should have been.

  “Auburn!” he said back.

  He’d make a great boss. They’d work together well. Buyathon was supposed to be a fair employer—not perfect, but always trying to improve things for workers.

  She was trying to talk herself into something she already theoretically wanted. What the hell?

  “So here’s the thing. I need you to meet two more people. I literally cannot get them into the same space before Labor Day, and I need to finalize this hiring decision no later than the first week of September because I really need y—whoever we hire—to start work before we get too much further into budgeting season.”

  He wanted to give her the job. That much was clear.

  “Can I convince you to do these last two interviews by teleconference?”

  She already knew she was going to advocate for herself to work occasional days or even weeks from Tierney Bay, so this fit her plans. If she was flexible with them about meetings, it was more likely they’d be flexible with her.

  “Of course,” she said.

  “I’ll try to get those set up for this week or, at latest, next. Good?”

  “Great,” she said.

  They hung up and she sat, her phone still in her hands.

  The door of the shop opened and Jax walked in. His expression was grim.

  “You okay?” she asked.

  “I’m fine.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “You sure?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Okay.” She went into the storeroom and set herself the task of unpacking some of the new shipments. She tried not to feel hurt by the fact that he didn’t want to talk to her. Sure, they were friends of a sort now, but it didn’t mean it was a good idea for them to start unloading on each other.

  After a moment, he came back and said, “Hey. I’m sorry.”

  She shrugged without looking at him. “It’s fine.”

  “No. It’s not fine. I was a dick. I just—I didn’t want to tell you, because it doesn’t cast me in the greatest light.”

  She looked over. His shoulders were slumped.

  “Does it make you look like more of an asshole than leaving town and ghosting me?” she asked.

  A wry smile crept over his features. “Probably not.”

  “Then why sweat it?”

  “Excellent point.” He took a deep breath. “I had this idea. I thought I could maybe get a loan. To tide Evan over, to give him more time. Past Labor Day. And, I don’t know, I thought if it was big enough, maybe it would help him get the immunotherapy, too. So I went around to the banks here. And then, for completeness’ sake, I called all the banks in Bakersfield, including the one I got the loan from to start my own business.” He shook his head. “I should have known.”

  “Known—?”

  “I’m borrowed out. I’m on track to repay, but I’m maxed at the moment. And game stores aren’t great bets, even when their owners aren’t eighteen,” he said.

  She took a deep breath. She’d known from his body language where the story was going, but she was still disappointed. A loan hadn’t occurred to her, but when he’d mentioned it just now she’d thought it was a good idea. A great one, even. It would give Evan just enough time to pull things together.

  “We could try a Bootstrapper,” she said. She dropped into the chair next to his.

  “A what?”

  “When my sister was trying to raise money to save Beachcrest—long story—she did one. Like a Kickstarter, just a different platform. People give you money for whatever—a business idea, a medical procedure.”

  “I guess? I mean, that feels a little like charity to me.”

  “It’s not,” she said. “It’s people investing in you.”

  His body language had closed down again, his shoulders curved inward.

  “But that’s not what this is about, is it?” she asked gently. “Not about the money.”

  For a moment she wasn’t sure he was going to respond. Then he took a deep breath and said, “No. It really busts my hump that I can’t take care of Evan the way I want to.” He took a deep breath. “I’ve always believed, you take care of your family. And after all these years, I’m still not in a position to be able to give my family a leg up.” He raked a hand, hard, through his hair; it stood more on end than usual and gave him the look of a young, good-looking mad scientist. “It kills me, Kee. That as hard as I’ve tried to do better than where I came from, I just…can’t.”

  “No,” she said. The whole time he’d been talking, conviction had been rising in Chiara. “No, that’s just not true. You would never walk away from his obligations like your father and your mother both did—”

  But she stopped short. Because as the words were coming out of her mouth, she heard them. And apparently he did, too, because he ducked his head as if he were ashamed.

  Of course, that was exactly what he had done. Maybe she hadn’t officially been his obligation. Maybe she hadn’t been family or his, explicitly, to take care of. But they both knew that he had promised her with his words and his body, in every
way an eighteen-year-old kid knew how, that he would be there for her. And then he had disappeared.

  “Jax,” she said, her eyes steady on his. “What the hell happened? Why did you leave?”

  29

  The day had worn badly on him. No matter how strong you thought you were, it was hard to ask for money, and even harder to get rejected. And asking for loans had always given him a bad taste in his mouth, even the garden-variety ones he knew were practically an American rite of passage—car, home, business. Over the years, each time he’d taken out a loan, he’d heard Rich’s words in his head.

  Build a life for yourself. Figure out how to stand on your own two feet. Take care of the people in your life.

  And then he’d come in here, thinking he’d be able to hide his frustration and bad memories from Chiara—but why the hell should that be true, when he’d never been able to keep anything from her? Except by fleeing town, of course, like the last time.

  Still, he hadn’t meant to blurt out so much, and he definitely hadn’t meant to lead them here, to her question: What the hell happened? Why did you leave?

  His chest hurt, like the secret inside it was battering to get out. And he guessed, after all those years, it probably was.

  She was waiting so patiently, too, listening like she’d listened when he was spinning out stories with her, when they were inside each other’s heads, bringing what they referred to as the Adventures—SuperJax and SuperKee’s story—to life.

  He would tell her. Not all of it, but whatever he possibly could without violating his promise to himself.

  “My mom started dating that guy. Stan.”

  She nodded. And her face got the look of someone who smelled something off, which was exactly what Stan had been, although they hadn’t known it immediately.

  Two weeks after the kiss-that-didn’t-happen in the Campbell kitchen, Evan had thrown up blood and landed himself in the hospital. And Jax had been the only one home, so he’d been the one to ride with Evan in the ambulance. Because he was eighteen, they’d let him sign the admittance forms, although they gave him such a hard time that he’d spent the entire night terrified that child protective services was going to appear at any moment.