I hold back a snort. That’s not going to happen, not when he hasn’t touched me in two years. Not that I’m complaining. I lostinterest the night of our wedding, when he told me toturn the lights offand didn’t notice the tears streaming down my cheeks afterward. Three minutes. That’s all it took. He fell asleep while I lay awake, crying as I realized I’d signed up for a loveless, lonely life.
We tried a few more times after that, but it felt more like a chore then ‘making love’. And then he gave me the best thing he ever could: Mia.
I glance at her now, fidgeting with the hem of her dress. One day, I’ll give her the freedom she deserves, to get dirty, to laugh, to eat sweets without shame. A life unburdened by perfection.
Karen and her fiancé arrive: tall, thin, blonde Karen, my mother’s favorite, and Thomas, who comes from money and was chosen as strategically for my sister as Kevin was for me.
“Karen!” my parents gush, hopping up to greet them. Karen takes her seat and sneers at me before I can even speak. I nod and sit.
Nobody has ever said it, but the vibes in the room, their faces, the way my mother’s lips turn down when she looks at me, scream it. I am the misfit, the imperfect one, the one who just cannot seem to be what they want me to be.
I have always been chubby, not overweight, just not thin. My mother made sure I knew it from the age of six. I tried every diet, every program, every torturous regimen she insisted on. None of it worked. She loved to remind me that I had inherited my grandmother’s“rotten genes,” her mother-in-law, whom she loathed with a passion.
I spent my life competing with Karen for our mother’s approval and losing. Every single time.
“Summer, why can’t you join a gym like Karen did?” my mother asked when I was sixteen.
So I did. Every second was misery. But I was desperate for her approval.
If I had a penny for every time someone in our society, Kevin included, said,“You have such a gorgeous face. And those eyes. If you could just lose some weight, you would be stunning.”I would have enough money to buy my parents out.
???
Dinner is an exercise in polite torture. When dessert comes around, I decline, knowing my mother will diagnose every missing calorie as a moral failing.
On the drive home, Mia falls asleep in her car seat. Kevin glances at the dashboard, then at his phone. The screen lights up. A message notification pings.
He picks up his phone, swiping the screen with a practiced motion.“I’ll drop you both home. I need to see a client, it’s urgent,” he says.
“It’s ten at night,” I frown at the dashboard clock.
“It’s business, Summer. I need to handle this client with care.”
A cold dread coils around my ribs. Something about the way he said it, the light on his face from the dashboard, the message still glowing in his hand… it feelswrong.
When we pull up, he doesn’t help with Mia. He’s already gone before Sam, our butler, has the door fully open.
Sam carries Mia upstairs, then I change her into pajamas and tuck her in without waking her.“Night, pumpkin,” I whisper, kissing her forehead. I head to bed but can’t sleep; the unease in my gut won’t let me. I call Kevin, no answer. I pour myself a glass of water and head downstairs where Sam is polishing glasses. I remember I can see Kevin’s messages through the app on his office computer. My hands tremble when I log in and find the message from Pey, a nude photo, a hotel name, a room number. My breath stutters for a few minutes, then oddly steadies. Reliefspreads through me like warm light. I’m mad but not sad. Finally, a reason to leave him, a way out of this hell.
I call my mother. She answers, annoyed.“Summer, why are you calling me at this hour?”
“I’m leaving Kevin,” I say, quiet but sure.
“What in the world are you talking about?” she snaps.
“He’s cheating. He’s at a hotel right now with another woman.”
She laughs, the sound polished and mocking.“Oh, darling, every man has other…interests. You think your father doesn’t?”
My stomach drops.“I can’t stay with him. It’s over.”
Her voice hardens.“You’ll do no such thing. You have one job, to tie this family to the Masters. Don’t you dare screw it up.”
“What if I leave him?” I ask, already knowing the answer.
“Then you’re on your own. We’ll disown you, Summer. Do you hear me?”
Something almost prehistoric in me calms as if a decision has been made in a place I don’t control.“I hear you,” I say.
