Good at Being Alive(42)

I do what I’ve always done when I’m not sure how to deal with my life: I work longer than anyone else, I drink more than anyone else, I hit the gym harder than anyone else. And by the time I land in Newark, I’m finally together again.

I call after I land. “I was going to come straight there but I wanted to make sure it was, er, a good time.”

“Come over,” she says. “I don’t actually love being here alone. Though you’re not likely to be much of an improvement.”

I laugh, unwillingly. She’s already fucking doing it. She’s already charming me, enticing me, seducing me, and she isn’t even trying.

I can’t wait to get there, and I suspect I should be staying almost anywhere else.



* * *



? ? ?

An hour later, she’s standing in the frame of the door, fresh-faced and glowing, wrapped in a blanket.

“Welcome home, darling,” she says. “I made a roast.”

My brows raise. “You made a roast?”

She grins. “No, of course not. But I was trying to think of something a TV wife would say. It was either that or ‘The police came today; why did they need your hard drive?’?”

Inside, the house looks even more faded than it did the last time I was here, as if Bex is sucking the little light it had away and keeping it for herself. She removes the blanket around her shoulders and I wince. She’s wearing shorts that might actually just be underwear and a crop top. “Dress code, Bex,” I growl.

She picks the blanket back up with a sigh. “You are not instituting a dress code in my home.”

I raise a brow as I look around. “Do you seriously expect me to believe you consider this place home?”

She flops on the couch, the blanket parting just enough to give me a flash of her inner thigh. “Wow. You’ve been here two seconds, and you’re already randomly insulting me. It’s a new record.”

“I’m not insulting you,” I reply, perching on the chair across from her. “I’m saying that I don’t understand why the fuck you’re still here.”

Nothing changes in her posture, but I sense the change in her anyway, a certain stiffness in her smile. “I’d think you’d approve of the fact that I’m still here, Mr. Frugality. And thank god I didn’t go splash out on a fancy apartment since you were running our business into the ground all winter.”

“Bex,” I groan, and a grin flashes across her face.

“Fine, it was already in the ground. But that doesn’t change my point: What is it you think I should have done instead?”

I shrug. “Put it on the market? This is a decent neighborhood. With new carpet and paint, you’d do okay on this place.”

Her smile fades. “Yeah. I just…” She tugs at the frayed blanket in her lap. “It just doesn’t seem right. I mean, they had this whole life, and the least worthwhile member of the family shouldn’t get to come in, wipe it from existence, and sit on the cash.”

“Least worthwhile? Bex, what the fuck?”

She looks at me, sighing. “You know it’s true. You said as much when we spoke last spring.”

“I never said you were the least worthwhile member.”

“No, you said, ‘Your father works his ass off, your mother runs a charity, your sister is in law school, and you’re in jail for threatening a horse. What does that tell you?’?”

I did say that. And I remember now that yes, I’d thought she was that one kid in every high-achieving family who decides to pursue performance art or fashion design and winds up doing nothing. Or goes to jail for threatening to punch a horse.

And none of it was true. Not a single fucking thing. What’s more appalling is that with all that talent and all that charm and intellect, Bex should have thrived but floundered instead. Jessie clearly wanted it that way, but why the fuck did Rick allow it to happen?

“Bex,” I say hoarsely, running my hands through my hair. “I was wrong about you. A lot of people were wrong about you. And I’m still trying to figure out why we were all so wrong but…if one person in this household was going to survive that crash, I’m glad it was you. And I think, perhaps, it was meant to be you.”

I’ve thought this—that she was saved, that she was meant to survive—for a while now. Perhaps it’s because she shines so bright. Perhaps it’s just that I can’t imagine my world without her in it.

She blinks back tears. “You’re incredibly sweet when you’re not being a prick.”

Every bone in my body wants to cross the room to give her a hug, something I’m definitely not doing when she’s dressed the way she is. I lean back instead, throwing my phone on the ottoman in front of me. “I’m never sweet, and I don’t say anything I don’t mean, which is how you can be certain it’s true. Except”—I nod at the massive book open on the table—“please tell me you weren’t reading a fucking encyclopedia tonight. That thing’s got to be twenty years old.”

She shrugs. “I was trying to see how they characterized our relationship with the USSR at the time of its writing, and I just kept going.”

Only she would look anything up in an ancient encyclopedia and just keep going. I fight the part of myself that loves this about her. I’m never getting married, but that’s exactly the sort of quirkiness I’d want in a wife if I did.