Page 2 of Vice
She glances at me out of the corner of her eye. “No.”
“Okay.”
She takes another drag, and then another. We stand in silence, both looking up at the stars, listening to the soft strains of music overflowing out of the back door. “All right, then,” she says after a while. “I don’t like feeling this way. I don’t want to feel this way.”
I put my arm around her, drawing her to my side. “I know.”
“I mean, who would? No one in their right minds, that’s for sure. He’s Louis James Aubertin the third, for fuck’s sake.” She flicks the butt of her cigarette away, and the ember of the cherry flares in the darkness before it disappears into the long grass a few feet away.
“What does that mean?”
Laura lets out a frustrated sigh. “He’s just…more than everyone else. He doesn’t even know it, and yet he is. He can have any girl he wants. He does have any girl he wants. Regularly. He’s an asshole.”
“Then why are you out here, beating yourself up over him?”
“Because…I don’t know. I always thought he was going to be my asshole, y’know. Ever since we were kids. It just seemed as though it was always going to be us, the three of us, together.”
I don’t know what to say to that. I suppose, in a way, I figured that in the back of my mind, too. Or maybe I just never really considered that Lore might end up getting married to some guy I don’t know, and that Jamie would carry on being Jamie.
We’re silent again. She gets another cigarette out of the pack in her purse, and we share the whole thing this time, passing it back and forth between us.
“It doesn’t help that he looks the way he does,” she says eventually.
I let out a bark of laughter. “I can mess his face up if you like.”
“Yeah,” she says, leaning her head against my shoulder. “That would actually be really great, thanks. If he looks like a hideous, disfigured monster, I won’t be in love with him anymore.”
It rattles me to hear her say that—that she loves him. I sigh sadly, planting a kiss on the top of her head. “You think so, huh?”
She answers almost immediately. “No. Not really. I think it wouldn’t matter what the fuck he looked like. I’d be in love with him all the same.”
I hug her, my heart aching for her. “You know that old saying?” I ask.
“If you tell me time is a great healer, I’m gonna kick you in the balls.”
Laughing, I shake my head. “No, not that one.”
“If you’re going through hell, keep on going?”
“Oooh, Churchill. Nice. But, no. Not that one, either.”
“What, then?”
I clear my throat, trying to give my words some gravitas. “I hope you step on a Lego, you arrogant motherfucker.”
She bursts into laughter, digging me in the side with her elbow. “Yeah, I do know that one.”
“Well, you’re my sister, and I love you. So I’ll start putting Lego in his shoes for you. It’s the least I can do.”
“The very least,” she agrees, nodding. And then, softly, “Thank you, Cade.”
“You are more than welcome. You wanna go back inside?”
“No. I think I’m gonna go home. This party is fucking terrible.”
“God, I know. Isn’t it?”
******
