EverWorld (Book 3 of the Down World Series)

Chapter Seven

"Why?" was the first word that sprang out of my mouth, though I immediately wished I had chosen a gentler one.

Piper just laughed at my response, though, and even Robbie seemed to get a chuckle out of it.

"Sorry," I stammered, trying to change my face into one that was a bit more receptive to their news. "I just mean, why now? You're so young." Piper and Robbie were only twenty-one. It was like they were telling me they were moving to a submarine beneath the Atlantic Ocean: technically feasible but what would be the point?

"Because we're sure," Piper answered, her hand grasping Robbie's with a determined squeeze.

A fleeting, and admittedly unflattering, thought crossed my mind: Does she just want to see how she'd look in a cute wedding dress? But I made myself dismiss it almost as soon as it appeared. This was right in line with Piper's way of fixing problems, after all: Robbie has bipolar; I'll fix it by demonstrating my undying love for him.

It was just so typical of her, I had to admit. Her unyielding optimism; the way she walked through a room like everybody in it was thrilled to see her, which they probably were.

But did she really know what she was signing on for?

I could tell from Robbie's face that he held the same reservations. This had obviously been her idea, which must have been what all those excited whispers were about earlier.

"I'm gonna go call my cousins and see if they can come," Piper squealed, giving Robbie's hand one more pat before dismissing herself.

My brain latched onto the next question like a stone skipping across a lake: "Wait, have you already set a date?" I called after her.

"Next month!" she answered, then all but flew to their room and closed the door.

I turned to my brother, whose sheepish face told me he had already considered all of my objections and was ready to combat them.

"Robbie?"

"Come on," he shrugged. "Let's go get a cup of coffee."

*

I could feel my foot tapping to its own frenetic rhythm under the corner table of our local coffee shop—a place the three of us had spent so many hours in at this point that we were practically part of the staff.

As if on cue, I saw Robbie up at the counter grabbing a napkin from the dispenser to wipe down someone else's spilled coffee near the register. It gave my heart a reassuring sensation to see Robbie do things like that, those little moments of kindness and consideration that were always second nature to him.

When he was first diagnosed as bipolar, after a series of bad late-night attacks, I would often find myself watching him for any indication of these impulses. It was my way of holding on to him. Of believing that no sickness could ever take away the parts of my big brother that made him whole, that made him Robbie.

I realized it was too much pressure for him sometimes—he had become the barometer by which I could gauge the rest of the world. If he was having a good day, I treated it as a sign from the gods that nothing could really be that wrong. And if he was having a bad day, well...

But even as I sat there, reassuring myself that everything was fine today, I was distracted by a tenuous wave of scattered thoughts. Had I simply been imagining that the phone call with Brady was as strange as it seemed? Was I reading too much into it? I mean, of course he was being short and awkward with me. Look at what I had done to him. And so what if he had talked to Principal Farghasian lately? He worked at the gas station closest to the school. She probably came in for gas.