24
Jack
Graham’s moving to Alaska. He and Stef are renting a house. Somehow they decided all of this over pancakes and coffee this morning.
I’m so confused. I’d be mad too because this is a terrible idea, but I’m out of anger. That part of me is numb.
“He’s leaving the charity.” She keeps her gaze fixed on the road ahead of us. We’re barely out of Anchorage, and I already don’t know how I’ll make it home. I want to crawl out of my skin. Absolutely nothing makes sense anymore.
“And you’re just going to forgive him?”
Stef grimaces. “We’re going to try. He’s giving up a lot, Jack. He’s joining a family practice in Anchorage. He’s moving up here. For us. For Robbie. He was never willing to make sacrifices before. If he’s giving all that up, I have to give him a chance.”
A grand gesture. If I were her, I’d make him grovel every day for a year before he could even move to the same town as me.
“Jack,” she says, and her voice has a kind of sticky sympathy in it that makes me even more desperate to get out of the car. She’ll want me to confide in her, and I don’t know how. Can’t make myself. She knows, of course. Because the more I think about it, the more my humiliation is turning into shame. Because I fell for it. All of it. Yes, David lied, but there were so many gaps. How does a bodyguard even go on a trip with his boss and then spend all his time fishing? How did no one tell me who he was? Marci could have said something. Why didn’t I ask more questions or dig a little deeper? Get on the goddamn internet because apparently there isn’t a single website out there that doesn’t have something to say about Damian Marshall?
“Uncle Jack?”
I’ve never been so grateful for a distraction in my life.
“Yeah, Robbie?” I twist in my seat. He’s watching me seriously, earphones still on his head.
“You’re living with us again.” It’s a statement, and he doesn’t wait for a reply before he goes back to the iPad, which is just as well because I don’t know what to tell him, and he doesn’t like to be contradicted when he considers something a fact.
But if Stef’s going back to Anchorage, if she and Graham will be all cozy, then there won’t really be a place for me. And yeah, the plan had always been for her to move to the city, but I was supposed to spend the whole summer showing tourists around the coast, and then after that I’d figure out what happens next for me. Instead, it’s been less than a month, and I’m back with nothing to show for it.
“What was he like?” Stef asks after she’s let me brood in silence for a few more minutes.
“Who?”
She gives me a hard stare. Of course she knows. She’s on social media. She’s sworn she hasn’t watched the video, but she knows what happens.
I sigh. “He was a selfish asshole who lied about who he was.”
“You may have mentioned that part already.”
“Well, it’s still true.”
“But—”
“But what? I should give him another chance because he’s really sorry? He’s not Graham. He’s not my husband.” Not even a boyfriend or a friend. A stranger looking to blow off some steam, who didn’t care who got hurt in the process.
Stef puts on her perky mom voice. The one she uses when the teachers want to have another “chat” about Robbie. “Do you want a coffee? I should have stopped for coffee.”
I stare out the window. “I want to go home.”
But when we get home, it’s not the same there. The swarm of reporters hasn’t materialized, but the house feels emptier somehow. Stef took my absence as an excuse to do a deep clean, and now nothing’s where it’s supposed to be. The change just makes me feel unsettled all over again. Once I bring in my stuff, I tell her I’m going out to buy groceries for dinner.
“You should go see Mom and Dad,” she says.
But how can I? They’d have no idea who Damian Marshall is either, but even if I skip over the sex tape part, I still have to explain why I’m back so soon.
“Maybe tomorrow,” I say.
Outside, I still have an itchy feeling along the back of my neck, like I’m being watched. I keep looking for someone lurking in the bushes with a big camera, but they’re either really well-hidden or I’m being paranoid.
The market is the way it always is. It’s a small family-owned store, and I say hi to four people before I’ve even grabbed a cart. They’re faces I’ve known for years, and if anyone is surprised to see me back in town so soon, no one comments on it. I grab lettuce and tomatoes for me and Stef and a bag of baby carrots for Robbie. He doesn’t like most vegetables, but he’ll eat carrots if you let him drown them in ranch dressing.
