Total pages in book: 110
Estimated words: 103530 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 518(@200wpm)___ 414(@250wpm)___ 345(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 103530 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 518(@200wpm)___ 414(@250wpm)___ 345(@300wpm)
I shook my head in annoyance as he broke into a grin. “Does your sense of humor wear off slowly after becoming a dad or do they have to surgically remove it at the hospital and replace it with a new, worse one?”
Sarrah’s phone alarm went off, and she shot up from the sofa. “That’s my time. Do you need me to pick up anything for you after work?”
“We won’t even be here,” I explained with a wave of my hand. “Our flight leaves at six.”
“And it’s wheels up at four-thirty,” Dad added.
“Wheels up refers to the plane, not the taxi taking us to the airport,” I corrected him. I put my arms out for a hug from Sarrah. Yeah, I was only going away for a long weekend, but I didn’t know how much we’d get to text while I was busy with wedding stuff, and we saw each other almost every single day. When she released me from her crushing squeeze, I downplayed my separation anxiety. “Chill. I’m going to a wedding. Not my own funeral.”
“Plane crashes happen.” Leave it to Sarrah to say exactly the wrong thing to a nervous flyer. “Not yours, obviously. Because you’re never going to die.”
“Neither of us are,” I agreed. “Ever.”
“Okay, I’m holding you to that,” she said and headed for the door.
When it closed behind her, Dad got to the point of his rare visit to his own guesthouse. “I heard about the interview.”
I cringed a little. “Yeah, not my finest hour.”
“The job market is tough right now.” Dad always had some kind of excuse as to why the problem wasn’t me. “You’ll get ’em next time.”
I knew he didn’t mean to sound condescending. “Next time what? Next time I get told I’m not ‘the right fit’ for telemarketing? That one really hurts.”
Dad’s graying eyebrows rose in an expression I’ve seen on my own face an uncomfortable number of times. “Does it, though? I think most people would feel like they dodged a bullet missing out on a job in a dying industry.”
While my father and I shared the same coppery-blond hair and bright blue eyes, I had my mother’s porcelain skin and deep sense of cynicism.
“I know this weekend is going to be hard for you,” he began. “People will ask you what you’re doing, and you’re going to want to say, ‘nothing, I’m a failure.’”
“You don’t know what I’m going to say,” I grumbled, because absolutely, that was what I would say.
“Your brother is fourteen years ahead of you. He’s had a lot more time to build the life he has. You have to stop measuring yourself against him.” Dad’s eyes were kind, but his words ignored the core problem. I would always measure myself against my brother.
He was the only reason I was born in the first place.
When Scott had been twelve, he was diagnosed with leukemia. His best hope had been a bone marrow transplant, but neither of our parents had been a good enough match. Mom and Dad took a chance that a sibling might be, though.
And then I hadn’t been.
Obviously, Scott had survived. He’d gotten his bone marrow transplant from the registry, and I’d gotten to enter this world a crushing disappointment. My parents had tried to reassure me throughout my entire life that they wouldn’t have had me if they hadn’t wanted another baby, that they loved me even though I didn’t work as spare parts, that even thinking about myself as spare parts was absurd. But it had been impossible for me to shake the conviction that if my brother hadn’t gotten cancer, I wouldn’t be around.
Failing at everything else? Didn’t make the situation any better.
“Look,” Dad said with a sigh of resignation. “Your only job this weekend is to go to a wedding. You’re not in the wedding party—”
“Thank god!”
“—and you’re getting a stay at a luxury resort where everything is paid for and there are plenty of swim-up bars. I think you should take a modest swimsuit and spend the entire weekend drunk.” He paused. “Just as long as you’re not too drunk to make it to the wedding.”
“Thanks, Dad. I think that’s a good plan.”
Even if the bathing suit wasn’t going to be modest.
* * * *
(Matthew)
It wasn’t every day that I got a chance to surprise my best friend, especially since our jobs had basically kept us in different countries ever since college. We’d gotten together every chance we could, but for the past decade it had been a once-per-year affair. And now that he was about to get married and start a family, that number would likely be reduced.
Wearing my driver’s hat and standing in the baggage area of Hilton Head Island Airport, I felt a pang of anticipated loneliness at the thought. Scott getting married shouldn’t have bothered me as much as it did.