Page 84 of You Met Me There

So I tell her about my nightmares. I tell her of how I felt lost and scared every time I went to bed, and I tell her about the therapy I quit going to and the alcohol I used just to fall asleep. I tell her every dark part of me and hope she can still see the little girl she knew behind the messy shell of myself. I don’t know what she’ll say or what she’ll think of me, but I don’t hold anything back.

As I talk, Juliet’s eyes glimmer, filling with tears. Moisture spills from them, and I watch her process my story, my reality, praying she’ll let me back into her life.

“I always had this—this feeling,” she says between her moments of weeping, “that I had to be doing something. That I should be helping you somehow. But I had no idea where you were. I felt so helpless, so empty not being able to do anything. I couldn’t even call you … You changed your number.”

“I never meant to make you feel that way,” I say. “I didn’t leave to intentionally hurt anyone, least of all you.” I squeeze her hands in mine. “I truly just got scared I might lose Luke, and I was blinded by the anxiety I felt. Clearly, I haven’t made many good choices in my life, but I’m trying to now. I want to make it all better. I want us to be a family again, to be sisters … and friends. Can you forgive me?”

There’s a moment of silence before Jules takes a deep shaky breath and dives forward, draping her arms around my shoulders. “Yes,” she says into the ends of my hair, hugging me. “I forgive you.”

Like a second skin I’d grown used to wearing, the weights of regret and self-blame shed themselves from my body. I hug my sister tightly, and our bodies shake with choked sobs as we cry with one another. Guilt had its ugly grip on me for almost ten years, and it feels better than I could have imagined to finally release the ever-present remorse from the deep caves of my heart where I’ve carried it.

“Thank you,” I whisper, my voice stifled by the collar of her thick bathrobe pressed against my face. “Thank you for letting me back in.”

She nods against my shoulder. “I missed you, baby sister.”

I cry more. And between sobs I can barely get out, “I missed you too.”

Chapter 42

Luke

“Do you think they’re okay up there?” I ask, unable to keep my knee from bouncing.

Cam sits on the edge of the couch, his chin in his hands, elbows on knees. I can’t tell who’s more nervous, me or him.

He looks up at me. “I think this conversation was a long time coming. They need to talk it through, so it might take a while.”

I shift on my side of the couch, watching as Levi and Archie build towers of magnetic blocks just to knock them down and start again. It’s a loud process, and my brain compares it with the silence that drifts deafeningly from upstairs where the girls are.

“Do you want a beer?” Cam asks, already getting off the couch.

I nod. “That would be great.”

He instructs the boys to stay downstairs, and I follow him into the kitchen. Two cans open with a hiss, then the cool liquid slides down my throat. Cam pounds his beer, coming up for air only when the can is empty. I stare at him.

Cam’s lip twitches. “What?”

“You okay over there?”

“Yeah.” He crushes the can in his fist and tosses it into the trash. “It’s just—it’s been hard watching Jules deal with Natalie leaving, and now showing up again. Don’t get me wrong; I’m glad she’s here. It’s just … hard seeing my wife go through the motions again.”

“The motions?”

He leans against the counter, crossing his thick arms over his wide chest. Not for the first time, I notice exactly how big Cam is. At six-four, he could absolutely crush me like that beer can.

His eyes stare at a corner of the ceiling before he speaks. “When I came back to Maple Lake and met Juliet—well, saw her again after, like, twelve years—she was in a dark place. She took it personally when Natalie left, and she had a hard time working through her feelings. But I’ve seen her change. I’ve seen her learn to be happy again, and it’s rough being on the sideline with all of these old feelings washing up.”

I nod and take another sip of beer. Cam rubs at the back of his neck with a large hand.

“I think they’ll be okay after this,” I say. Cam meets my gaze with his green eyes. “Natalie wants to make amends. She’s really struggled since leaving too—it wasn’t just Juliet who had a hard time.”

“Really?” He lifts a brow.

“You’d be surprised. Don’t let the colorful clothes and the bubbly attitude fool you. She hides a lot. Natalie’s had a few hard years too.”

Cam seems to accept this, nodding once before rubbing his hands down his face.

Just then, I hear a creak on the steps, and we both whip our heads around to see Juliet and Nat rounding the corner into the kitchen. I don’t know what I thought I’d see when they came back down, but it wasn’t grinning faces, glowing cheeks, and two sisters who look more alike when they smile than any other time I’ve seen them side by side.