Page 116 of Good at Being Alive
“Are you going to be like this when you’re pregnant?” I ask.
She glares at me. “I know you don’t thinkthisis a good time to discuss producing your oversized children.”
“Fine. We should wait until after you’ve gone back to school anyway.”
She huffs. “I’m not going back to school and we’re probably going to have to amputate my legs after this race, so I’ll be spending the next year adjusting to that. So no school and kids might be out too, depending on the degree of amputation.”
I did assume there’d be a fight about school, though I did not anticipate her bringing up amputation as the excuse. I refuse to back down, however. “You can’t keep waiting for inspiration to strike. It’s time to try some things out.”
“Worried I’m going to lie on your couch all day eating donut holes?”
“If you think I’d object to the idea of you prone in my flat,” I purr, “you don’t know me as well as you soon will.”
Her gaze meets mine and there’s nothing exhausted or angry about it. Good old Bex…bring up sex and every other problem disappears.
“I had a different idea,” she says. “I’d like to plan trips. New places. Like I did with Huacachina. Those trips we pretended to plan in Europe were ridiculous, and the company hasn’t added anything new in years. Once the show airs, we’ll get a lot more business, and people are going to be hungry for something beyond the standard European vacation.”
“We need that…” I begin, wincing at how ridiculous my objections are. “But it would involve a lot of travel.”
“Well, obviously. I mean…that’s sort of the fun part.”
Alas—I’ve fully turned into my brother.“Once you get to London, I’m not going to want you to leave,” I admit. It sounds even more lame aloud than it did in my head, but she just smiles—aquiet, secretive smile, half pleased and half bashful. Perhaps,after a lifetime spent feeling as if her presence was unwelcome, that the opposite is finally true means something.
“It’ll be nice to be missed,” she replies. “And just think about all the reunion sex we’ll have. You know what I’m like after a week without it. So just picture—”
“Rebecca,” I growl, “don’t start this shit with me just as we’re approaching the cameras. I’ll miss a lot of things about you, but I won’t miss your desire to get me worked up in public.”
“Liar,” she says. “You’ll miss that too.”
Probably, yes. But I’m not about to encourage her by admittingit.
Eventually, we reach the finish line, where we’re enfolded in a group hug by the crew. Someone pops a bottle of champagne open and pours it into plastic cups, and Katrina raises hers.
“A toast!” she shouts. “To Theo and Bex, who are incredibly bad at pretending to like each other when they don’t, and even worse at pretending they’re not in love when they are.”
I smile at Bex, and she smiles at me. Katrina’s right. After a lifetime of hiding pieces of ourselves, holding back what we wanted…together, we could only be ourselves.
Hundreds of people crossed the finish line before we did.
I’m still fairly certain we won.
Bex
The day after the marathon,we limp back to my dad’s house to continue packing. A full day is spent on Jessie’s endless closet and my dad’s smaller one. A second day is devoted to the basement.
Theo returns to London, the buzz about our show begins, and shortly thereafter, Baby Makes Three—complaining about us all the while—announces they’re branching into selling supplements because travel is “a dying industry.”
They know they’ve lost. Even a few of their followers say as much, though most of those followers are me and Katrina.
When Theo gets back to New Jersey, the bulk of the work is done. What remains is the hardest part: Bronwyn’s room. I can’t bring myself to throw out all her awards and diplomas and mementos, so we’re putting them in storage instead. But even going through them tears me up inside because my god, she had so much potential and worked so hard, and I hate that it all came to nothing.
Theo nods patiently as I show him her awards and explain what they were for. I know he has his own thoughts about all this, but he didn’t know her. She didn’t win all these things atmy expense. She was entirely in the dark because that was where I wanted her tobe.
“Look at this,” he says, handing me a piece of paper with a photo taped to the top. It’s me and Bronwyn at some summer camp we attended as kids, wearing matching teal camp T-shirts and popsicle-stained grins, her blond head leaning against my darker one.
Beneath it is a fill-in-the-blank form. She says her favorite food is pizza, her favorite movie isFrozen,her favorite show isWizards of Waverly Place.Her best friend, she says, is “my sister.”
Me.
