Nightmare

"Perfect," I murmured as the van pulled up outside my new apartment. I rolled down the window when a man knocked on the glass. "You must be the new girl moving into apartment thirteen — Miss Coleman, right?" he said. I studied him — wrinkled skin, a scatter of moles, a white mustache and beard, a cap pulled low. He didn't look like security, and he definitely didn't look like he worked here. When I didn't answer, he wiggled his eyebrows and bent down to my level, that same easy smile fixed in place. "You'll love it here." I didn't like the way he said it, but I didn't have much choice except to say something back. "Thanks," I managed, with no idea what else to add. I thanked God when the actual security guard showed up and waved me toward a spot on the roadside. I locked the car and popped the trunk to get my bags. "Nah-uh." A familiar hand caught my wrist before I could lift anything. I couldn't stop grinning as I turned and hugged my brother. "Oh my God, I missed you. I thought you weren't coming till Sunday," I said, still holding on. He pulled back just enough to look at me, pride written all over his face. "How could I not help my little sister move into her own apartment?" "I wouldn't have done any of this without you," I said. It didn't come close to meaning what I wanted it to mean. "Kate wanted to come too, but her niece got sick — she's on babysitting duty." Katherine was my sister-in-law. She and my brother dated for three years before marrying six years ago, and I loved her the same way I loved him. She treated me like her own sister, and the three of us were close in a way that made the idea of moving out of their house feel almost like a betrayal. No one wanted me to go — not Kate, not Nolan, not even me, if I was honest. But I'd told myself I needed this. We'd lost our parents in a car accident when I was two and Nolan was sixteen. He raised me alone from there — father and mother both — and he'd paid for it. No dating. No scholarship, because a scholarship meant leaving, and leaving wasn't an option with a two-year-old to raise. None of the things a sixteen-year-old should get to do, because all of it went to me instead. I used to think of myself as the thing that had stopped his life from happening. He never once let me believe that. Not a raised voice, not a cutting word, not one decision made behind my back. He was, simply, the best brother anyone could ask for. I sniffed and wiped away a single tear before he could catch it. He caught it anyway. "I don't like seeing my little angel cry," he said, tapping my nose. "It's just — I was thinking what a great brother you are." He smiled and pulled me into another hug, kissing the top of my head. "You're the greatest sister too. My redeemer." I smiled weakly back. "Any plans on getting your luggage inside?" the driver called out, clearly annoyed. I rolled my eyes — I've never been good with people, and true to form, he'd hiked the rent and refused to let me borrow any of his staff. I started toward him anyway, but Nolan caught my arm. "Wait here." He walked over and said something low to the driver, who made a phone call almost immediately. Ten minutes later, three men were carrying my boxes up to the apartment. Nolan had always known exactly how to talk to people. I'd never had that gift. My family still couldn't quite believe I'd landed an internship at Google right out of college — not because they doubted me, but because I ran from every room with more than three people in it. Nolan and I hauled the first few boxes inside. "I'll pay them — go check everything's there," he said, nodding toward the door. I nodded back and got to work. There was a lot to unpack. I'd already painted the place — Kate had helped pick the colors, and the three of us had done the walls together. I tore open the box marked with a big red 1, the one I'd wanted to open first. Inside was the photograph, unbroken. It was the only picture I had of my parents: my second birthday, four days before the accident. I studied it the way I always did — how cute I'd been, that smile I'd clearly gotten from my father. I couldn't remember his face, not really, but I only had to look at Nolan to know what he must have looked like at thirty-five. In the photo, Nolan wore the carefree grin of an ordinary teenager. It might have been the last time he ever smiled like that. "Jade." Nolan's voice carried a warning. He'd already found a nail and was hammering the frame into the wall. I didn't feel much when I looked at that photo — I didn't know them, not really — but it was never the same for him. He stared at it a beat too long, like he was working out how things might have gone if they'd lived. I couldn't just stand there and watch him do that. "I didn't like that they gave you strawberry cake instead of chocolate," he said, making a face. "I will never understand girls and pink." I burst out laughing. "Kate's more of a pink girl than I am." He glanced around the apartment — pink walls, pink everything, exactly the way Kate and I liked it. "They'd be so proud of you," he said, looking back at the photo. I didn't know if that was true. But — "Yeah," I agreed anyway. "Jade, your phone!" Nolan called from the kitchen, elbow-deep in unpacking pots and pans. I grabbed it off the charging stand, and my whole face lit up at the name on the screen. "Kate," I chirped. "Oh, my sweetie-pie," she chirped right back. "How's the new place?" I could hear the question underneath the question. "It's not home. Not yet, anyway." "Jade." She used her mother-voice. I knew exactly how much she missed having me under her roof — but I wanted this too, for myself and, in some strange way, for them. "I like this change," I said, looking around the apartment. "And I'm going to keep liking it."