“Garrett,” she coos. “Oh my God. Is this your tiny hand?”
I wrap my arm around her waist and drop my chin to her shoulder, examining the glass ornament she holds delicately in her hands. There’s a small, white handprint on it, and each finger is decorated like a snowman. I spin it, showing her my sloppy handwriting, the backward letter G, and the 5 that tells us how old I was.
Her beam is so bright. “Do you have any paint?”
“Paint?” I follow her gaze to the box of six glass globes. “You wanna make handprint snowmen?”
She grins, head bobbing.
What did I say? Cutest thing ever? Feeling like a pretty accurate statement right now.
Forty-five minutes later, our hands are covered in grayish-blue latex paint that won’t come all the way off, there’s paint on the tip of Jennie’s nose and above my left eyebrow, and our miscolored snowmen handprints hang side by side on my tree. Jennie’s the happiest I’ve ever seen her.
She’s snuggling in on the couch while I put the finishing touches on our ice cream sundaes when my phone starts vibrating across the room.
“Uh, you have a FaceTime request,” Jennie tells me, her tone uncharacteristically reserved. “Someone named Gabby.”
“Oh perfect.” I set the ice cream bowls on the coffee table and flop down next to Jennie. Taking my phone, I wait for my littlest sister’s face to appear. “Hey, Gabs.”
Out of my periphery, I catch the way Jennie’s shoulders drop, and she scoots a little closer.
“Garrett!”
“What’s up, kiddo?”
Gabby heaves an exaggerated sigh. “I miss you so much. Alexa is annoyin’ me. Maybe she’ll be nicer when you get home.”
“Shut. Up. Gabby!” Alexa yells from the abyss. She’s three years older than Gabby, and a fuckload sassier. She and Jennie would get along well.
“See what I mean?” Gabby rolls her eyes, and when she notices the bit of Jennie she can see, her face lights. “Who’s that?”
“This is my friend, Jennie.” I flash the phone her way, and Gabby gives Jennie a big wave. “We’re about to eat our ice cream sundaes.”
“Friend? Like, girlfriend?”
“No,” Jennie and I say at the same time, laughter echoing off the walls.
Gabby’s eyes sparkle with mischief, and she grins, showing off the gap between her front teeth. “Sure. That’s what they all say.” She twists. “Mom! Garrett has a girlfriend!”
“Is she coming for Christmas?” Mom shouts back, and Jennie buries her face beneath my arm.
“No, she can’t make it,” I tell them, smiling down at Jennie. “She’s about to die from embarrassment because the idea of us in a relationship sickens her.”
“Ha!” Mom snorts from afar. “I like her already!”
Gabby giggles. “Well, I guess if you’re eatin’ ice cream, I should let you eat it before it melts. I can’t wait to see you, Garrett.”
“Me too, Gabs. Love ya.”
“She’s your twin,” Jennie murmurs when I set my phone down. “She almost looks like she could be your daughter.”
I chuckle, handing Jennie her sundae before I dive into mine. “Yeah, me and Gabs look just like our mom. Alexa and Stephie look like our dad.”
“You must be so excited to see them. I always wished I had a sister.” She steals a chunk of banana from my sundae. “Will you see anyone else when you’re home?”
“My old high school crew gets together every time I’m back. There were only sixty of us in our graduating class, so most of us were pretty close. Almost everyone still lives there.”
It’s hard to tell what lingers behind Jennie’s smile. It looks part wistful, and maybe a little sad.
“What about you?” I shove her spoon aside, digging into her bowl after emptying mine. “Are you still close with your high school friends?”
Jennie pauses on sucking her spoon clean. “No.” The simple answer is soft but firm, final, and the way she starts putting space between us, no matter how little, tells me not to push it.
“Whadda ya wanna watch?”
“I don’t care.”
I highly doubt that. We’ve watched several movies and TV shows together, and I’ve only ever been allowed to choose when it’s a preapproved movie or show on her list.
I flip mindlessly through Netflix, focusing instead on Jennie from the corner of my eye. She’s pulling at the frayed hem of the blanket draped over her lap, tugging at the cuff of her sleeves, twining her hair around her fingers, all while looking anywhere but at me.
I don’t like the apprehension she’s wearing, the rosy flush of her cheeks because she’s trying to withhold her emotions, the way her gaze wobbles just slightly.
I pick up her phone. It’s still connected to my speakers, so I exit her Christmas playlist and click on the one titled J’s Favs while she watches me curiously.
“I can’t dance like you, but I can do a mean slow spin around the living room. You shoulda seen all the girls I got at the Spring Fling in eighth grade. Started so many fights between friends.” I hold out my hand, and when she hesitantly slips hers into mine, I pull her to her feet. “C’mon, Jennie. Dance with me.”
Her grin is a slow explosion, lighting her whole face as all that apprehension fades away. “You’ll dance for me?”
“I’ll do anything for you.” Spinning her into me, I wind an arm around her back. When our fingers lace, she lays her head on my chest. “Although it’s secretly killing me that I’m slow dancing to Justin Bieber right now.”
We sway together, a comfortable silence that wraps around us, the twinkly lights from the Christmas tree making her glow in my arms, but I think she always glows.
A new song starts, and Jennie makes a soft, happy noise, her body molding into mine. I listen as she hums along to the music, and as the words dance around my living room, the familiarity of the tune sinks in.
“This is your favorite song,” I murmur.
“How’d you know?”
“When you drove me home after my concussion, it came on the radio. You turned it up and sang along.” I looked it up later that night, learning its name: “Falling Like The Stars.” I remember the quiet way she sang the words, the way the air in the car changed, heavier somehow. I knew then I wanted to know her better, so I came up with my genius swim plan. She’d never let me go alone.
“I thought you were sleeping.”
“Nah. Just couldn’t look at you.”
“Garrett,” she guffaws, delivering a swift smack to my shoulder.
I chuckle, catching her hand and tangling our fingers again. “Not like that. We were alone in my car, and you looked so hot sitting in the driver’s seat. I was afraid I was gonna derail us and toss you in the backseat.”
She giggles quietly, and I revel in the feel of her in my arms, like she was made to be a part of my life in some way.
“Jennie?”
“Yeah?”
“Can I ask why?”
“Why what?” Her body doesn’t even tense, her hand soft and warm in mine, head on my shoulder while she hums along. I’d like to tell myself it’s because she trusts me, that she feels safe here with me. But she’s relaxed because she has no idea I’m about to go down this road. She thinks she’s surrounded by skyscrapers, but they’re only walls. Walls that lower day after day, letting me peek into her life, her past, even if she has no idea I’m looking.