Starlings

Dear R,
Here is part three of the story I wrote you.
--S

III

T

I can see her car from a few miles off, pulled to the side of the road. I push 75 mph as I approach, and as I slam on my brakes to stop the car behind me blares its horn. I jump out onto the highway so quickly that It’s a miracle I’m not hit.

The March air is freezing, and I didn’t bother to grab a jacket on my way out. I can see that my sister is crying. Her arms are draped over the steering wheel, and her head is buried in them. She doesn’t notice me.

B

I’m crying embarrassingly loud. There is snot on the sleeve of my sweater, and I am positive my eye makeup is in puddles. But I can’t stop. It just keeps hitting me like waves. Washing across my mind. He didn’t even say anything as I walked out. Just sat there at the stupid breakfast table, staring at his hands. And it was in that moment that I wondered if he ever cared like I did.

T

I rap my knuckles on her window, shifting my weight from one foot to the other, trying to stay warm. It is beginning to snow.

B

Someone knocks on the window and I look up. Thomas is standing there, spring snow drifting around him in the cloudy sky. I stare at him, and he yanks the door handle impatiently. It is locked.

“Open the door!” He yells through the glass.

I unlock it and he swings it wide before clambering in, practically on top of me.

    I scoot over as much as I can without actually sitting on the center console as he slams the door shut. He turns to me.

“It’s fucking freezing outside.” He says.

T

Her face is streaked in black makeup, eyes all puffy and read. And she’s still beautiful.

“Here” I say, lifting the hem of my t shirt and wiping a few tears away for her. She’s just looking at me. Dumbfounded. As though a stranger just climbed into her car, and not her...what am I to her?

I clear my throat. The snow has turned to sleet, making spattering noises on the windshield. I don’t know what to say. We’ve been through everything together. She is my best friend. A friend, and a sister, and this other thing that I really can’t explain. She has kept by my side when it’s felt like none of the world would. And what I realized as I left the house after her, what I’m beginning to realize now, is that that ending it today would be ending one of the biggest pieces of me.

And if all of this isn’t love, I don’t know what is.

B

His features soften and his endless, hazel eyes are slightly hidden behind the snow on his lashes. I expect him to say that he is sorry. And that we should still be close. Friends, just not all of the other stuff, but if I need time that’s okay. And that I shouldn’t wait for him, because we are never going to happen. I’ve got it all mapped out in my mind. Every word, and I hold my breath, waiting for my heart to officially break.

.    .    .

“I love you.” He says. A flock of starlings surges outside as the sleet turns to rain.