“You’re going to yell now, aren’t you?” Her brother slumped down into the sofa they hardly ever sat on in a room they rarely used.
It seemed like a metaphor for all the parts of her life she’d closed off when her parents died. And, like a metaphor, it was also the room Will had carried her to that morning he’d surprised her with a sexy visit. God, she really needed to stop thinking about him. Especially now that he was gone...and it felt like her heart had broken into a million, billion little pieces.
Turning back to Jeremy, she said, “Is that how you see me? Always yelling?”
“No.” His brow knitted as he thought. “You don’t yell.” Then he shrugged. “You just tell me what to do all the time.”
She did. She took him to school, to work, nudged him to do his homework, to clean his room, to go to bed because it was late and he’d be tired in the morning. But when he was with Will, they’d had fun. They’d raced around Laguna Seca a few days ago and ridden the Giant Dipper at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk a couple of weeks ago on one of Will’s fun Sunday excursions after the Saturday work on the car. Whereas she’d never even taken Jeremy to the Exploratorium.
She could suddenly see that Jeremy had been starving for some fun. Harper wondered how much more guilt—and how much more sorrow—she could handle before her heart collapsed beneath the weight of it.
“I’m not going to yell at you today, but we have to talk about your phone.”
“I know. I was just so excited. And Ronnie—he works in the supply room—drew me a map of how to get there. And it was so cool and there was so much stuff to do that I forgot the time. Until they were closing, and they said I had to leave.” He had done all that himself—found the museum, paid to get in, wandered the exhibits.
“I’m glad you had fun,” she said, and she truly was. Still, she needed him to know how serious the situation had been. “Your phone is your lifeline. You could have called Will, and he would have told Benny where you were.”
“I’ll take it next time. I promise.” He nodded expansively.
Next time? “You can’t go wandering off by yourself like that. You got lost. You need to wait for me to come with you on your next adventure.”
He frowned. “I should have had Ronnie draw me a map of how to get back, too.” Then he brightened. “I showed Benny the map, and he said I would have been fine if I’d just turned right instead of left when I came out of the museum. That’s what I did wrong. I can do it, Harper. Next time, I won’t turn left.”
He’d followed the original map. Jeremy had figured out the streets and he’d walked there. He’d made only one small mistake that had thrown him off. A simple mistake that plenty of people could have made in a part of the city that was new to them.
It was astonishing...and also horrible to realize that she, the sister who loved him and would do anything for him, was the one who didn’t think him capable.
Will did. Ronnie did. Benny did. She was the only one who doubted him.
More tears welled up and spilled over before she had a chance to stop them.
“I’m sorry, Harper. Please don’t cry.” Jeremy’s eyes grew wet, too, in empathy. That was the kind of boy he was. No, he was a young man, not a boy. But she’d never treated him that way.
Harper swiped at her tears. “I’m just glad you’re home and you’re okay. But we need to go over a couple of rules. What’s the first rule?”
When she stopped crying, he did, too. “I have to take my phone everywhere.” His voice echoed in the nearly empty living room.
They would have to start hanging out in this room again. Her mom would want that.
“And the second rule,” Harper enumerated, “is that you don’t leave work or school unless you talk to me first.”
He was practically bouncing on the sofa. That was her brother, overexcited, racing toward the next fun and interesting activity, forgetting the fright as if it had never happened. “Or Will? Can I call Will?”
Will. She’d told him she needed to reevaluate whether Jeremy should work for him. Until this moment, she’d been positive she’d never let her brother go back there. Now, she wasn’t sure what to tell Jeremy.
“For right now, let’s just keep it that you call me, okay?”
“Okay, but Will always tries to help me. Always wants me to learn stuff. Always wants me to have fun.”
She swore her heart swelled a thousand times bigger as she looked at him a long moment—really looked. Her brother had the exuberance of a child, but the look of a young man. He smiled wide, he loved big. He could forget the bad and move on to the good. She was supposedly his teacher, the person he learned from. But she’d never stopped to think that Jeremy had things to teach her, too.
Like how to stop living in the past. How to trust. And, most important, how to love without holding anything back out of fear.
“Were you scared last night?” She’d never even thought to ask. She’d just assumed. Because she’d been terrified, and because Jeremy didn’t like the dark sometimes.
“I was scared.” He nodded hard. “But then I found a cop. And he was really nice.”
He’d been scared. But she didn’t think he’d been terrified. He’d gotten through just fine. Yes, things could have gone horribly wrong. He could have met bad people. But he’d actually done quite well.