I stared at his words, my hands shaking as tears rolled down my cheeks. “It has a happily ever after,” I whispered to myself, stunned. Graham had never in his life written a happily ever after ending.
Until me.
Until us.
Until now.
I stood up from the bridge and hurriedly found my sister. “Mari, we have to go back.”
She smiled wide and nodded knowingly. “I was hoping you would say that.” She took off the heart-shaped necklace Mama gave to me and placed it back around my neck. “Now come on,” she softly said. “Let’s go home.”
I stood on Graham’s porch, my heart pounding in my chest. I wasn’t certain what was on the other side of that door, but I knew whatever it was wouldn’t make me run. I was going to stay. Forever and always, I was staying.
I knocked a few times and rang the doorbell, and then I waited.
And waited.
And waited some more.
When I turned the doorknob, I was surprised to find it open. “Hello?” I called.
The room was dark, and it was clear that Graham wasn’t home. When I heard footsteps, I tensed up. Lyric came from the bedroom hurriedly, two suitcases in her hands. She didn’t see me right away, and when she looked up, there was a look of panic in her eyes.
“Lucy,” she said breathlessly. Her hair was wild, like how Mama’s had always looked, and her eyes were bloodshot. I knew I owed her nothing. I knew I didn’t have a word to say to her, or comfort to give her way.
But the way her eyes looked, the heaviness of her shoulders…
Sometimes the ugliest people were the ones who were the most broken.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
She snickered, and a few tears fell from her eyes. “As if you care.”
“Why do you think I hate you?” I blurted out. “Why in the world do you hate me?”
She shifted her feet and stood tall. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Sure you do, Lyric. I don’t know why, but it seems you’ve always had a problem with me, especially after Mama passed away. I just never understood why. I always looked up to you.” She huffed, not believing me. “Seriously.”
She parted her lips and at first, no words came out, but then she tried again. “She loved you more, okay? She always loved you more.”
“What? That’s ridiculous. She loved all three of us girls the same.”
“No, that’s just not true. You were her heart. She was always talking about you, how free you were, how smart you were, how amazing you were. You were her light.”
“Lyric, she loved you.”
“I resented you. I resented how she loved you, and then, I come back here and he loves you too. Everyone has always loved you, Lucy, and I was left unlovable.”
“I always loved you, Lyric,” I said, my chest hurting from the pain in her voice.
She snickered in disbelief as her body shook and tears rolled down her cheeks. “You know the last thing Mama said to me as she was lying on her death bed and I was holding her hand?”
“What’s that?”
“Go get your sister,” she said, her voice cracking. “I want Lucy.”
I felt it, too, the way those words cracked my sister’s heart, how ever since she’d never been able to put the pieces back together.