Two Heartbeats on One Page

Chapter 25

A few more days passed and Darcey was in even worse condition when Jordan returned to work. His first night back was nerve-wracking but ultimately uneventful. Jenna had agreed to let him stay in the back and bake for a few weeks until he felt safe working in the front. Alice was gone.

"She quit," Jenna said softly. "She said she didn't feel safe coming back."

Jordan didn't blame her. Neither did he.

Although before he would have been asleep by noon at the very latest, Jordan's sleep schedule was still off kilter from all the time he'd been off, so he was in bed on his laptop until almost 3:00 when he finally started to fall asleep. He opened the tab with his email one more time to see what the new message alert was about before shutting everything down.

There was a name there he hadn't thought of in a very long time.

Jose Delgado.

The message title was simply, We should talk soon.

He snapped awake again.

His mouth went dry, the back of his neck prickling with nervousness and unsureness. How did his brother even get his email address? Jordan had always been so careful about who he gave it to and where he made it accessible. He'd changed it shortly after he left his parents' house. He changed his phone number. His name. Everything. Vince said Jose had been asking about him, but he wouldn't... Vince wouldn't have said anything, right?

The preview of the message sat in faded font next to Jose's name, beginnings of the first sentences: Hey. I'm getting close to graduating high school and all the time you've been gone has

And then it cut off. If he wanted to see the rest, he'd have to open the message.

Why was he so afraid to do so?

He hovered the cursor over the email title, fingers hesitating just above the trackpad.

He didn't open it. With one quick flick of his fingers, he deleted it instead.

There, it's done, he thought, but it wasn't, because it gnawed at the back of his skull while he put his laptop to sleep.

He swallowed, and it was like trying to force a glass ball down, it stuck halfway and shattered, leaving his throat and lungs cut up and raw. His hands were shaking and he didn't understand why.

He woke up his computer, logged back into his email, and went to the trash bin.

He opened the message from his brother.

Hey. I'm getting close to graduating high school and all the time you've been gone has given all of us a lot of time to think. Grandma has been really sick for a long time and the doctors are saying that it won't be much longer. I really want to see you again and I think you should come see Grandma while you can. A lot has changed and I thought, maybe you've changed, too. I miss having a big sister.

Jordan's fists clenched. His breathing came too heavy and his vision blurred, but not from tears, from anger. How dare his brother track his down his email and contact him now just to open old wounds and spit in them. Now, when everything was finally going right. Why was he even writing? What was his point? To rub in the fact that the family thought he was a joke? A freak, a pervert, crazy, what? What was his point? That his brother wanted to talk to him again but only if he would be what he wanted? They both knew their grandma never wanted to speak to Jordan again. Why would Jose want to rub in something so painful? Hadn't he done enough?

Jordan typed out a quick message back, even though he knew he shouldn't. It would just make the situation worse. But he couldn't just let him say something like that.