She’s in linen pants and a silk blouse. Pearl earrings. Makeup. The upgraded diamond wedding ring Dad bought her the first year the company had over a million dollars in profits.
“Did Dad cheat on you when I was a baby?” I whisper.
Can’t help it.
Sabrina was right. I didn’t want to know. But I guilted it out of her last night while she dropped everything to sit with me in the emergency room.
Mom gasps and her chin wobbles. “Who told you that?”
“That’s not really the important part, is it?”
She sighs and turns to the window. “Laney, sweetie, life’s complicated, and you need your rest.”
“I need a little more than that, Mom.”
“Rest first.”
“I don’twantto rest. I want to go sledding. I want to go see a frozen waterfall. I want to race go-karts in the middle of town in the middle of the night. I want to drink too much and need Sabrina and Emma to carry me home. I want to learn to scuba dive and go back to Hawaii and dive with the turtles. I don’t want to besafe. I don’t want to besmart. I don’t want to wake up when I’m seventy-four and realize my entire life has passed me by with no stories to tell about it beyond that time I had a really hot fling with a funny, adventurous,rules don’t existguy during the best-worst week of my best friend’s life. And I want to know how many people in this town know that Dad cheated on you and just don’t talk about it becausenobodysays bad things about us because we’re the damnKingstonsand we fund too much around town to risk pissing us off.”
She stares at me like I’ve lost my mind.
I probably have.
And I’m okay with that. I don’t want my mind back.
I want myheartback.
I flop back against the uneven pillow behind my back and stifle a grimace of pain.
Probably shouldn’t do that while my leg’s in a cast. “Never mind. I’ll take a damn nap.”
“You’re upset that we didn’t offer to help Bean & Nugget,” she says quietly.
“Did you know?”
She sighs. “You’re upset that we weren’taskedto help Bean & Nugget.”
“And that’s because…?”
She takes a long time to answer, and when she does, it’s on an even deeper sigh. “Christopher wouldn’t have cheated on you.”
So that’s it.
She picks men for me that she thinks won’t cheat.
Theo wouldn’t have cheated.
Would he?
I don’t know.I don’t know.
Fuck Theo.
Just fuck Theo for making me fall in love with him and not having the balls to love me back.
I turn my head away and close my eyes. “I’d rather not get married at all than get married to someone who has the personality of a shoe insert. So if that’s all you plan on introducing me to for the rest of my life, please don’t waste your time.”
“The gel inserts or the old-fashioned inserts?” she asks.
