Sisterhood Everlasting - Ann Brashares [31]
“Why do you think that?” His face was tender. He was still holding her hand.
“Because she left things for us. To say goodbye.”
Kostos nodded. He was quiet for some time. “Are you sure?”
She shook her head. “Not of anything anymore. But she wrote to us about getting along without her. She left us envelopes of things to be opened later, when she said she knew she couldn’t be with us.”
“Could she have been planning to go somewhere? To move away?”
Lena considered. “She wrote to us about how she wanted us to remember her.”
With the hand that wasn’t holding hers, Kostos rubbed his eyes. “It does seem like she knew something was going to happen.”
“Yes.”
“And you are afraid that if she did, then maybe she meant for it to happen.”
That was the step Lena couldn’t follow. You would think that, but she couldn’t have meant for it to happen.
“Did anyone talk to the police or the coroner about that?”
She shook her head, stricken. “Because I just can’t imagine it.” She didn’t remember crying, but her face was wet again. She hoped he wouldn’t notice.
“But that’s how it seems.”
“That’s how it seems.”
Bridget sat down at the laden kitchen table and stood up again. She paced the sunless room. She ate half a slice of avocado and felt it curdling her stomach.
She couldn’t seem to focus on Eric’s face, or really on anything. Her eyeballs seemed to vibrate in their sockets. She tried to sit down again, but she couldn’t. Her legs would not be still. She felt Eric’s concerned eyes on her and tried not to let the panic show. He was expecting her to tell him about Tibby, but she couldn’t do it.
“I’m going to walk,” she announced. “I need to get something at the drugstore.”
He stood. “I can get it. I don’t mind.”
“No, thanks. I need to move around a little. I was on a plane for a lot of hours.”
“But you didn’t eat yet.”
She grabbed half the burrito in its foil to eat on the way. “It’s a girl thing I need. Can’t really wait.” She was halfway to the door before he could stop her.
“Do you want company?” he asked, following her.
“No, no. I’ll be back soon.” She didn’t even look behind her. She stumbled down the stairs and let the big door close after her with a bang.
She walked. She walked quickly without thinking of where to go. She paused long enough to drop the half burrito into a garbage can. She would have liked to have her bike, but she didn’t want to go back for it. She didn’t walk to the drugstore. She didn’t get or need girl things. She needed to keep moving.
She walked up Divisadero Street and saw the sunset. It was a beautiful pink, orange, and deep gray sky, but the beauty of it didn’t enter her eyes. It stayed on their surface, a reflection.
She would have kept walking down into the Marina and into the sea, but the thought buzzed and nagged every few minutes like a clock-radio alarm set to snooze that just would not leave you alone: Eric was waiting for her. Eric was sitting with a table of her favorite food. Eric was worried about her, and the thought of him wouldn’t leave her alone.
At last that alarm nagged so loudly she stopped and turned around and walked straight back down Divisadero. She walked all the way home, harnessing her panic to propel some kind of plan. A bad plan, a wrong plan, but the only plan she could tolerate.
“I was starting to worry about you,” Eric said as soon as she walked in the door.
She went directly to the bathroom and closed the door. She hadn’t been sensible enough to bring home a bag. “You shouldn’t worry,” she called through the door.
She sat on the closed toilet and put her head in her hands.
This is the man you love, some part of her felt the need to say.
I don’t even know what that means, the rest of her responded. I don’t know how to do that now.
She thought of the bed. The four posters. She came out of the bathroom when she could.
Eric was reading legal papers at the kitchen table. He’d put away the food.
She stood sheepishly in the doorway. She touched her fingers to the messy