HUGE 3D: Chapter 20

The rest of my finals come and go over the next week. I throw myself into studying to keep away from everyone else in the house and to numb the grief. While I’m focused on the work everything seems to be okay. Then Nana’s memorial takes place, and I’m there with mom to receive the ashes from the funeral home. It brings everything back up for both of us. I’m there with mom again to help her and Auntie Amanda sort through Nana’s things. It’s a long emotional day filled with happy memories and sad goodbyes to some of the items she treasured in her life.

And when all of that is done, I feel like there is a huge hole in my life.

My phone buzzes on my nightstand, and I groan as I roll over, seeing how late it is on my bright-lit alarm clock. The phone vibrates again, so I fumble for it.

Even though I put out word that I need some alone time, Falon wants to come over and celebrate the end of the term. All I want to do is stay in my room and avoid having to face Dane, Dylan, and Drew, but Falon’s determined to find a way to cheer me up. “You know your Nana wouldn’t want you moping like this. She was cool like that,” she says. If it was anyone else I’d be mad as hell, but Falon is just speaking her truth, and she’s right. Nana would want me living my life. She certainly wouldn’t want me wasting time feeling sad about her.

Falon’s not the only one I’ve been trying to avoid. It’s been so hard…trying to preserve this illusion in the house like everything’s normal and nothing weird is going on. Especially because this time, the triplets are very obviously avoiding me, too.

They won’t look me in the eye. They make up excuses about hanging out with friends outside of the house. Or they stay really late training with their teams. Things that I guess make sense but still feel like a slap in the face even still.

I can’t really blame them after what I said…

I settle into my usual spot on the sectional—Mom and Rich pick a movie for everyone to watch together as a family, and as much of a fight as the triplets put up about the whole thing, they finally come down the steps from their rooms. No one looks at me as they take places on the couch. They’re only a few feet, but they might as well be miles away.

It’s an action movie from a franchise that probably should’ve died off years ago, but at least it gives me an excuse to sneak glances in their direction. Doesn’t matter though, not when they pretend to be incredibly interested in their phones, or in Dylan’s case, in the movie. No one seems to remember I’m here.

This is how it’s been in the house since the incident at the hotel. Between Mom crying in her room and not wanting to do anything, Rich being preoccupied with her, and the guys actively ignoring me, I feel like I live in the house by myself.

The worst part? I miss them. Deep in my bones, I miss them.

Dinners aren’t the same without them being ridiculous and goofing off, laughing at their own dumb jokes. I even miss them eating everything before I’ve even gotten to the table. When I put the dishes away yesterday it hit me, seeing the empty muffin tins stacked neatly back on the shelves. Dane’s stopped baking.

Dylan’s speakers aren’t crooning with sad country songs anymore, making the rest of us pretend to plug our ears as we passed his room.

And Drew…he’s lost his edge like the sharpest knife gone dull. His usual sarcastic, charming smile is gone.

It’s like a light’s gone off in the house and I don’t know what to do to switch it back on again.

It feels like it’s all my fault.

They haven’t even been spending that much time with their Dad. When the sports channel flickers on in the middle of the afternoon after Rich gets home from work the guys would usually hop over the back of the sectional, snag the remote from him, bouncing between the many sports channel. Dylan would always get hit in the head with pillows by his brothers when he’d change it to basketball. I always pretended to roll my eyes at their laughing, annoying yelling and shouting at the TV. I pretended to hate a lot of things about my stepbrothers that I find myself missing now.

I guess it’s true that you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone.

My stomach clenches in on itself as Drew gets up, nudging the other two.

“We gotta get going. See you later,” he says, not bothering to say much else after Dylan and Dane follow behind him.

“Hey! I thought we were all going to watch the movie?” Rich calls out to them, shaking his head as Mom curls up closer to him, leaning against his chest. “Those boys, I swear.”

Pulling the blanket around me tighter, I give in to the aching that’s filling me up inside, trying to fight it back with rational thinking.

I know what Nana said about following my heart no matter what, but there’s no way she would have meant to fight for this weird situation. For this eight-legged kind of freak show love. If that’s what it even was…

And they’ve given up so easily on me just because I didn’t want to tell our parents about us. Call me crazy, but to me, that’s what any sane person would do in our situation. Right? It’s not like they’re fighting for my love or anything. All it took was a few words to keep our secret, and they’re pissed at me. They’ve switched off.

It’s about time I get sensible about this.

We live in the same house.

They’re my stepbrothers.

There’s three of them.

There’s only one of me.

The world is totally not ready for this.

I can tell myself all the reasons why I need to just forget about them.

Maybe it’s a blessing in disguise. It could never have worked out between the four of us, not if we had to keep it all a secret. No matter what that girl Hannah said, it’s just too taboo. I have to be able to show my love. I don’t want to have to hide it from anyone.

I remind myself that the kind of man I need is nothing like my douchebag father. I need someone who won’t give up on me when the going gets tough. I need one good, stable, reliable man who will make sure I’m the only center of his world, and that’s only when I get to that point in my life. Hell, I haven’t even finished college yet!

Sighing to myself, I try to get back into the movie on the TV. The triplets have made the decision for me and now I need to forget about it all.