“Can I share with you what happened the night of Billie’s dinner?”
Her posture straightens, phone locking. She places it face down on the table and adjusts her body to face me, the cotton of my t-shirt twisting around her torso.
“Of course.”
I tell Liliana about the request my father had the nerve to make. I watch her jaw drop in shock and absorb the tight grip around my hand when I walk her through my thoughts. I gulp down the bitterness when I rehash how hurtful being labeled as an option, so many years into adulthood, makes me feel.
When I finish recalling the worse event of that night, Liliana’s nose curls in a sneer. “What an asshole!”
“Baby.” Shock replaces my dejection. “Since when do you swear?”
It’s the first time I’ve ever heard her curse. I don’t know if she did it to lighten the mood or make me feel better, but the surprise manages a laugh out of me. I’m thankful.
“I hate cursing, but he deserves it.” It’s validating to hear it from someone who barely knows my father. Not a familymember, or long-time friend who saw me grow up without a dad, or a random passerby who recognizes him from finance magazines.
Lily sees him from the tiny crumbs of a relationship he feeds me. She’s the proof my hatred is beyond childhood daddy issues.
“Can you imagine that, though?” My head shakes. “Me, in a suit, chained to an office for the rest of my life?”
She shakes her head, too. “Having to live by deadlines, follow every rule in the book? You could never.”
Her sweet laugh fills the room, and I follow, but it dawns on me that deadlines and rules are the exact type of life my girlfriend has lived by. As ridiculous as it sounds to have me in a corporate career, it’s equally laughable to think of her that way, too.
She’d be good at it, no doubt. Organization and problem-solving are her strong suits. But I can’t imagine Liliana hunched over a desk year after year, filing papers by someone else’s instruction instead of sharing her own ideas and opinions. Maybe she’d dominate a leadership position, but it’d be a waste of her writing talents.
Before I can point out I might not be the only one destined for the artist lifestyle, especially if her finished story gets the feedback she hopes it will, Liliana mumbles through her laughter.
“I can’t believe you told him that part about the blender. Billie was right.”
My thoughts halt. My face twists.
“Billie?”
Her laughter starts to trail off too, but the corners of her smile stay upturned. “Yeah. She, uh, just mentioned something when I spoke to her that night.”
The lighthearted smile on her face confuses me. I remember seeing them talk on the balcony, but I figured it was nothingmore than surface level details. Curiosity and skepticism stir in me.
“In the conversation you two had?”
Her grin starts to falter. When it’s about to disappear completely, she brings it back. “Yeah. I actually wanted to talk to you about that.”
“Okay. What about it?”
A distant expression appears on her face. Her eyes stay wide, but they’re lost and unfocused. Even if she’s staring at me, it feels like she’s looking everywhere else.
“Before we talk about it, I want to say that I’m not trying to overstep and butt into a situation that doesn’t really involve me. I just think I’ve been kind of put into a place as a middleman, and I want to help mediate a little bit, because I really care about you.”
Confusion knocks my head backwards. This sounds awfully serious for a random conversation with Billie.
“I’m going to be straight forward and say it.” Liliana bits her lip. Whatever they talked about, it’s starting to make me nervous. “I think you may have misjudged your siblings, and it might be good if you opened your mind to getting to know them.”
She has the gaze of a concerned teacher trying to ease their student into doing better, because they’re so close to the edge they’re afraid of watching them fall off completely. It’s a weird mix of pity and helplessness.
I grimace. I hate it.
“What did Billie say to you at her birthday dinner?”
Her posture deflates and mine stiffens.
