He is like every boy on every military base in America. At least from a distance. Even in civilian clothes, boys like him are always uniform, with their nearly shaved heads, muscular shoulders, and bulging biceps. He is caught in that space between man and child. A little baby fat is still in his cheeks, but he has the body of an adult male.
I know without asking that he was some kind of high school sports stud. Football? No … wrestling. The boy takes a step; I watch him move, and I know he was some kind of hotshot high school wrestler just as surely as I know my own name. He carries himself like someone who hasn’t yet been beaten. But high school — and even West Point — are not like the world at large. He doesn’t know what I know: that, eventually, everybody gets taken down.
“Gracie, I’d like you to meet John Spencer,” Jamie says. “Spence, this is my sister, Gracie.”
I hold out my hand. “Grace.” I glare at my brother. “He’s the only one who gets to call me Gracie.”
Spence takes my hand and tips the cap that he wears over his too-short hair. “It’s nice to meet you, ma’am,” he says.
This makes me laugh. “Ma’am?”
“Yeah, don’t you know, Gracie?” Jamie puts an arm around me. “We’re in training to become both officers and gentlemen.”
Jamie thinks he’s funny. He’s trying to make me laugh again, but I just look at John Spencer. Spence.
“You go to West Point, too?” I ask him.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And you’re both on leave so you just happened to pop across the Atlantic Ocean?” I say.
I don’t ask how many phone calls Jamie has shared with Grandpa. With Dad. I don’t want to know how many hours they have worked and worried behind my back, strategizing how to pull me back from all the metaphorical cliffs — and all the real ones, too.
Was this Jamie’s idea?
And does anyone really think this can do anything but go terribly, horribly wrong?
Spence and Jamie share a glance before Spence answers, “My grandmother was from Adria. I’ve never been, and when Blake said he was coming this way, I decided to tag along.”
“Blake?” I ask.
“Blakely.” Jamie says our last name as if that should explain it all. “Blake. You get called by your last name a lot at West Point, and …”
“Oh, I get it. Spence. Blake. Very cute. Very fun. You guys are adorable.” My brother is looking at me. No, I realize with a start — my brother is seeing me. He’s not like Noah. He’s known me longer — better. And I’m afraid that Jamie is going to see all of my new secrets, read them in my eyes. It’s the one thing I can’t ever let happen. Not again.
Suddenly, I step back. I feel my brother’s arm fall away. “It was nice meeting you, Spence. And, Jamie, I’ll see you soon, but I’ve got … things to do.”
“I’ll go with you.”
“No, Jamie. It’s okay.”
“It’s not okay. I came a long way to see you. Now let me see you. I miss you.”
When I pull away again, Jamie moves in front of me, blocking my path. This isn’t some maneuver they teach at West Point. It is Sibling 101, and Jamie’s always been a natural.
“Wait,” he says.
“Don’t,” I tell him.
“Don’t what?” He is using his Big Brother tone, daring me to deny that he is taller, stronger, faster. Older. But he has spent two semesters already at West Point, and I’m no longer the girl he left behind. The me who lives in Adria feels more like an only child.
“Don’t lie to me,” I say, my voice too low for Spence to hear it.
Jamie is facing me, away from his friend. Maybe that’s why he allows a look to cross his face, almost like I’ve slapped him.
“I’d never lie to you, Gracie.”
Except you have, I want to say. You lied to me every day for three years. You are still lying if you dare to stand there, looking like a part of you doesn’t hate a part of me.
But I don’t say a single word.
“Gracie —”
“West Point cadets don’t get leave, Jamie. And if they do, they don’t leave the country.”
“Well, actually,” he says, sidling closer, “we do have a break between terms. And we are allowed to leave the country if we miss our kid sisters.”
He wants us to pretend, to act like nothing’s wrong and nothing happened. But I am so, so tired of making believe. I have been living a lie for three years. My mind is having a hard enough time remembering the true version of events; I can’t bear another fake one.
“Don’t you mean, if your kid sisters have nervous breakdowns? West Point cadets get to go on big international trips then?”
I wait for Jamie to joke again, to laugh. Or, better yet, to walk away. Yes, walking away would be so much better than standing in the fading light, pity filling his eyes.
“I’m fine, Jamie. You didn’t have to come check up on me.”
But he just shakes his head slowly, side to side. He sees right through me.
“Now who’s lying?”
Spence has drifted back inside, and for once, Embassy Row is quiet and still.
“Do you have a good therapist?” Jamie asks, slipping from brother to father to mother. My role is still the same.
“Yes.”
“Are you going?” he demands.