by Dawn Ius
I can feel it in my gut, the anguish, her guilt. . . .
“Possessed,” she finally says. Fresh tears form in the corners of her eyes. “I don’t know how else to explain it. I wanted to hurt her. Like seeing her in pain might take some of mine away.” She holds onto the back of her neck with both hands. “How fucked up is that? I knew she was going crazy and I didn’t stop. We’d lost our dad to his affair, and because of my actions, we were losing each other, too.”
“Everyone deals with grief in their own way,” I say. “I know it sucks, but you’re not the reason she’s in the hospital.”
“Wrong again.” Anne looks up and her eyes shimmer. “Mary was only looking out for me, trying to get me back on track. At first, it seemed like that’s what her boyfriend wanted too.”
Another bout of jealousy rocks through me. Suddenly I’m unable to process anything but another guy kissing her . . . touching her. I know it’s selfish, that this isn’t about me, but I can’t stop visualizing him, her, the two of them. . . . “I don’t get it,” I say, choking back anger. “You were so mad at her—at them—for helping you that you . . . had sex with her boyfriend?”
“We didn’t actually have sex,” Anne says, and a tear crawls down her cheek. “Mary thinks that’s what happened, though—lots of people do. Maybe if I’d been a weaker person, Jesse could have gotten his way. He sure as hell tried.”
Another tear slides down her cheek and she hangs her head before I can wipe it away.
“I guess it started out innocent enough—little things I mistook for kindness. Like he was just trying to make a good impression on Mary’s family. And I enjoyed the attention.” She blushes. “Not in that way. I mean, after dating a string of guys who cared more about their bongs than me, it was easy to get caught up in . . . normal. Or what I thought was normal.”
Anne takes a deep breath. Exhales. “Mary loved seeing us hang out. Said it made her heart happy to have the two most important people in her life getting along. It seemed to even cover up the sibling crap going on between us.”
I reach for her, but she doesn’t give in. I’ve never felt more helpless.
“A few months later, though, things started to change,” she says. “Or maybe I just became more aware. Jesse was always around, consoling, taking over as the man of the house. His subtle flirtations became more overt.”
Sensing what comes next, the cracks in my heart give way a little as I absorb Anne’s pain. This time, when I draw her close, she doesn’t push me away.
“The more aggressive Jesse became, the more I realized he wasn’t at all who I thought he was,” she says. “But how could I tell my sister that? She loved him. I put up with it for a while—spent more time away from home, got myself deeper in shit,” she says. “I should have realized my rejection was pissing him off.”
She exhales with a shudder that vibrates through her entire body.
“I came home drunk one night, and never made it up to bed. I’d stripped out of my clothes—they stank like smoke and beer—and curled up on the couch. I thought I was alone,” she says. “When Mary came downstairs in the morning, Jesse and I were entangled on the couch—barely dressed. I don’t even know when he slid under the blanket. He knew Mary would find us like that. A sick and twisted way to get back at me for rejecting him.”
Before I can react, she turns her eyes to me. The dark pools draw me in like quicksand. “It didn’t look good, I know that,” she says. “But I never had sex with Jesse. No matter how crappy I was feeling, I would never cross that line.”
She kicks at a rock. Sends it flying into the creek with a light splash. “What I didn’t know was that Jesse had started planting thoughts in my sister’s head, making her think I was trying to break them up. God knows what other bullshit he was feeding her. He told her I took advantage of him that night.”
“Because he was so fucking weak?” I snap. Christ, this guy’s an asshole. “He set you up.” Every piece of me wants to find this shithead and pile drive him into the ground. “But why let him win? Why let everyone think the worst of you?”
“Jesse was Mr. Perfect around anyone else. While I was busy making a reputation for myself, Jesse was scoring brownie points with my mom and Mary. They thought the guy was an Adonis. Probably still do.” Anne shakes her head. “Sometimes, it’s just easier not to fight, you know?”
Her words hit home.
“After Mary was committed, Mom met Thomas and next thing I know, we’re riding off in his limo with the promise of a fresh start,” she says. “Thomas has set her up in the best hospital money can buy—no way we could have afforded it. But even if we had access to the same care here, Mary would have stayed away. She hates me. And now, I’m somehow supposed to forget. Simple, right?” She sighs. “I guess that’s why I confronted John that first night. I didn’t know what people knew, or thought they knew. I’d been too subtle with Jesse—and there was no way in hell I’d make that mistake again.”
Her shoulders slump, and her eyes fade to dull charcoal. It almost kills me to see her pain.
“I don’t know how to forgive myself, how to let it go. If only I’d told her sooner what was happening, maybe . . .” She reaches up and touches my cheek.
My chest swells so full I think it might split in half.
“I have a history of fucking things up when the going gets tough. And that scares me, Henry. Because you’re right. This—us—is never going to be easy.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Anne
I pause in front of the glamorous master suite and brace for whatever version of my mother I will find. The anxious woman, nervous about fitting in, terrified of losing all of . . . this? Or some semblance of the woman I remember—the confident, nurturing mother who isn’t afraid to admit a piece of her misses our old life, our old selves.
My father.
And yes, Mary.
Before Dad left, we didn’t walk on diamond-crusted eggshells. Mom didn’t wear high heels to the grocery store. We didn’t keep secrets. Confiding in her used to be—
Easy.
My mother emerges from her dressing room, luminous in her aqua ball gown, hair pinned up and curly. Her heart-shaped face glows in the incandescent light.
“Hello, dear,” she says when she sees me. “You look different. . . . Worried, maybe.” She pauses to collect her thoughts. “Is everything okay?”
Things between us are less strained now that we’ve moved away from my mistakes, her heartache . . . Mary. But part of me knows she’s worried I’m going to somehow fuck this up. Her eyes narrow as she studies me, tries to assess the situation, determine what’s wrong. Whether I’ve got good news, or if I’m in trouble at school, or maybe I’m knocked up. She always thinks the worst of me. In addition to committing my sister to the psych ward, I’m also somehow to blame for Dad running off with that librarian.
My mother’s voice lifts, her skin pales. “Anne? What is it?”
“It’s not bad,” I say, and blink, blink, blink away the tears and the fears. I move over to the bed, unfold my body onto the cream-colored duvet sprinkled with tiny pink roses.
My mother sits on the edge and tilts her body so she’s facing me. “It’s not your father, is it?”
I shake my head, struggle not to frown. Why would she think that after all this time, my father would call, that he’d even want a relationship with . . . me, the problem daughter? I wonder whether he’s visited my sister, or if she’s met his new wife.
My mother’s shoulders sink, weighed down with relief. She pats my leg. “That’s good. I worry he’ll try to contact you now that—”
Now that we have money.
“It’s not about Dad,” I interrupt, biting back a knee-jerk he’s-not-like-that response. He didn’t leave my mother for money.
My mother frets, her fingers twisting at her shiny new diamond-studded wedding band. “Good, because I want this to work, for you to be happy here.”
“I am happy,” I say. I’m totall
y blushing now, and if she knows me, remembers who I am, who I was before Dad shattered our illusions of happiness and true love and forever, she’ll see I’m telling the truth.
“You’ve started to make friends, then?” my mother says, nodding. Her eyes shine with hope. “Some nice girls from the area?” She stands, busying herself with getting ready for the unknown checkmark on her social calendar.
This evening’s gown spills over her hips, flows onto the floor, forms a satin puddle on the white carpet. She sits at the dressing table and rummages through her jewelry box, holds diamonds, topaz, and pearls up against her ears and neck.
I wait for her to notice me in the reflection.
Our eyes meet. I force myself not to blink and she freezes midmotion, the string of pearls clutched in her fingers.
Her voice is low and soft, barely more than a whisper. “What is it, ladybug?”
“I’ve met someone,” I finally say.
My mother’s expression is an eerie mixture of confusion and joy and fear rolled into one giant wrecking ball. Only her lips move. “You’re dating someone?”
I grin, afraid my face will crack, relieved and scared. It’s more than just dating, but I doubt she’d understand. “Yep. And I’m going to see him again tonight.”
“Someone from . . . Medina?”
I nod.
She blows out a breath that is more than relief. I don’t need to read her mind to know what she is thinking. She’s wondering who, and how, and maybe why, but most of all she’s wondering when, because she knows, or thinks she knows, that when we left I’d sworn off relationships altogether. A twinge of something akin to pain skips across my chest, and I don’t know if it’s because I’m broken or missing or maybe even that I’m healing, almost healed.
My mother twists on the stool so that she’s looking at me, really looking. Her smile is genuine, so wide I could count all her teeth if I wanted.
“Come on, ladybug, spill,” she says, and she’s suddenly standing, practically running toward me, taking me back, back, back to my childhood, to days when we laughed and played. Before Mary got sick. Before Dad left. She sits on the edge of the bed and pokes my thigh with a long manicured finger. “Who is it?”
I giggle—and almost gasp, because the sound is so unnatural for me. I can’t remember when it happened last and so I do it again as she jabs and jabs at my leg, poking and prodding me to share my secrets, to confess.
“Don’t make me tickle it out of you,” my mother says.
Before I can protest, she tackles me, her fingers expertly navigating their way under my T-shirt and into my armpits.
A strand of her perfectly placed hair swings loose, sticks to the side of her lip. She’s fast becoming a hot mess, but it’s like she doesn’t care, because for this moment, we’re back to who we once were. Not just mother and daughter, but best friends, the kind that whisper and share secrets, laugh together, cry together.
Survive together.
My mother is beautiful when she’s real like this.
“Who is it?” she says through gritted teeth, and at last, I relent.
“Henry,” I say, kind of breathless.
She freezes as though I’ve slapped her. I can hear the gears working, the click-clank-clunk as she tries to process, to understand how this could have happened.
“The Tudor boy?” she finally says.
“He broke up with Catherine,” I say so fast, knowing that’s the question she’s thinking, wondering. “For real. I didn’t ask him to.” My body tenses in defense. “I’ve really fallen for him, Mom.”
The realization shocks me, makes my whole body quiver.
Because I know it’s true—and that as ridiculous as it seems, as unrealistic as it is, I think Henry’s falling for me, too.
My mother’s hands come together with a loud clap. “Anne, this is fantastic news.” She pats the edge of the bed, beckons me to come closer, and turns her body in to mine so we’re face-to-face, the way roommates or best friends sit to gossip. “Well done, ladybug! We must tell Thomas right away.”
My blood turns to ice.
Well done?
“Thomas?” My voice is so tiny, barely more than a squeak. I wait for her to reverse, to tell me first that she’s happy for me, to ask for more details, pause for that tell-me-more moment. A cool chill seeps into my bones. “Why would Thomas . . . care?”
Her voice drops to a whisper. “The Tudors are the most influential family in Medina, Anne. Maybe the whole state.” She leans closer. “Thomas has bid to do the architectural plans on a number of projects owned by the Tudors. If you’re dating their son, he’s practically a shoo-in—”
My body vibrates. “You want to use my relationship as leverage?” The bitter taste of bile crawls up my throat.
She stares at me with disbelief and presses her hand against her chest. “Really, Anne. Aren’t you being dramatic?”
“After everything we’ve been through. You’re actually serious right now?”
“Ladybug,” she says, tentative and nervous. “I’m surprised by this reaction. You know we are ecstatic for you. What’s really going on here? Don’t you like Thomas?”
“This isn’t about Thomas,” I say so slow my voice slurs. “It’s about me. Your daughter. How I feel.”
She stands and makes her way back to the dressing table, lifts a string of pearls and holds them up to her neck. “After what happened back home, I’m thrilled you’ve met someone,” she says, though her words are thick with dual meaning. “And all the more thrilled it’s Henry Tudor; he’s quite the catch. Now, would you help me with this clasp?”
I cross the floor to her, pull the necklace tight around her neck, and fasten the lock, fingers trembling.
She lifts her hand, entwines her fingers with mine. “The real test, ladybug, is keeping things interesting,” she says. “A boy like Henry Tudor is easily bored.”
I open my mouth to tell her she’s wrong, that Henry isn’t like Dad. Henry is handsome and popular, and all the girls want him—but he’s not a player.
The words don’t come out. I study my mother’s reflection in the mirror, look really hard. The wrinkles around her eyes are gone, her skin radiant and smooth. Thomas’s house is filled with sparkling, shiny things, material goods that light up my mother’s eyes. And for the first time since we’ve moved to Medina, I realize, there is no going back.
“I know you won’t believe this,” she says, “but I truly want you to be happy. I am happy for you. Young love should be like this. Not dangerous and deceitful. I trust you, Anne. I believe you’ve learned from the past.”
Her words slam into me with the force of a hurricane and I am suddenly at a loss for words. So shocked I can’t scream, can’t cry, can hardly open my mouth. Because it’s clear now she doesn’t believe me, that despite everything she’s told me, the assurances, the forgiveness, she actually thinks I slept with Jesse, that I’m capable of such a horrible betrayal.
My stomach churns.
How can I have a fresh start—move on and forget the past—when even my mother, my own flesh and blood—doesn’t believe in me?
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Henry
Anne’s different tonight.
Manic, not romantic. Her smile is wide, but it’s a little off, maybe forced. She’s more Hyde than Jekyll. I can’t quite put my finger on it.
I shift on my feet, change position, tuck the helmet under my armpit and run a hand through my hair. “You’re acting weird. Did the talk with your mom not go well?”
I’ve been so wrapped up in making amends with my own mother, trying hard to follow her rules and show her that nothing has changed, I never stopped to consider that Mrs. Harris might not approve of . . . me.
Anne raises one eyebrow. “Are you going to stand there and gawk or hop on?” she says, and revs Clarice’s engine.
Maybe I’m imagining it, but a flash of something like hurt trips across her eyes and then fades. I hesitate before reach
ing for her shoulder. “I thought we agreed not to keep secrets.”
Anne throws back her head like she’s exasperated. “I just need to let loose. Have some fun.”
She shifts forward, making room for me on the back of her bike. Giving in, I slip on the helmet, slide in behind her, and grip the back handrail. The cool metal bites at my skin. She guns the throttle and Clarice’s roar reverberates across the lake.
I lean forward and wrap my hands around her waist. Her heartbeat presses against my palms. Erratic. Too fast. I can’t tell whether she’s frightened or confused.
I nuzzle up to her neck, whisper in her ear. “Hit it, babe.” Clarice lurches forward. Anne weaves around the stretch of speed bumps on my driveway and we sway back and forth, our movements in sync. Those speed bumps seem silly now, but as kids, Arthur and I would race our soapbox cars along the pavement. My mother always worried we’d crash, or worse, be hit by one of Dad’s never-ending string of visitors.
A sigh settles at the back of my throat. That’s the kind of stuff I miss, what’s been absent for the past year. It’s like my mother’s nurturing feeling just got up and left, a sad side effect of losing the two people she loved most in this world.
I shake away the memories and focus on the present. My future. Not all of the pieces have clicked into place, but there’s no question Anne will be part of it—part of me. She’s the first person I think about in the morning, her eyes the last image I see before I fall asleep. In the end, it doesn’t matter who approves. Not my mother, not even my friends. But I want to believe they’ll come around.
As we hit the main road, Anne gives the throttle some gas and we pick up speed. The wind flicks my visor like a whip. I press my head against her back and shut my eyes, sucked in by how effortlessly Anne commands the bike.
I guess it’s normal that things feel a little awkward and foreign tonight. This is still new. We are still new.
Complicated.
I open my eyes just as Anne turns on to a side street and guides Clarice down a lonely back alley. The strip mall is closed for the night, lights off, doors buttoned up tight. The dumpsters overflow with recycling and garbage that will be emptied by morning.
