“But you’re not.”
“I guess.” She put the first pieces together. “When my mom talks about what happened with Cindy, I feel so bad for her. She had all those months of waiting and planning and dreaming about what it would be like when she finally got to hold her baby. She totally took care of Cindy, acting as part older sister, part mom.” She paused and looked at him. “Does it bother you to hear this? Do you feel you have to defend Cindy? She’s going to be your stepmom.”
“I’m good,” he told her. “Cindy’s great, and whatever she did at eighteen is fine with me. She was in a tough position.”
“She was. Scared and pregnant and sort of alone. My mom would have been so kind to her, which would have been great until the doubts started. Then what was she supposed to do? She had an impossible decision to make. She could give up her child, which she didn’t want to do, and get the future she’d been dreaming about, or she could do what I assume she considered the selfish thing and keep her baby. Only the price of that was hurting Ava and walking away from college and all her plans.”
“What would you have done?” he asked.
“Not get pregnant.” She held up a hand. “I know, I know. That’s judgy. I’m sure a lot of teens think it won’t happen to them, but we all took sex ed. The day I turned sixteen I told my mother I wanted to go on birth control.” She smiled. “I have to give her credit. She only flinched a little. Two days later I was at the gynecologist.”
Her smile faded. “It’s like I have good- and bad-mom stories. Sometimes she’s totally there, and sometimes it’s like we constantly go at each other.”
“Isn’t that normal?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. Except I usually feel like there’s something between us. A wall, maybe. My theory is we missed that window of emotional bonding when I was a newborn. She was mourning Shannon, and someone shoved me in her arms. I wasn’t what she wanted. Eventually she warmed up, but by then the window had closed. So we are where we are.”
“Or you could just be different people who have clashing personalities. Not every reason has to be dramatic and unsolvable.”
She stared at him, not sure if she should laugh or sock him in the arm. “I can’t believe you said that.”
“Why not? You’re saying the reason you and your mom don’t get along is some biological misstep. According to that theory, the problem can’t be fixed. Which means not only is it never your fault, there’s no point in trying. So while it sucks to be your mom, who is eternally in the wrong, you get to be righteous and not have to do anything about the problem.”
Had he been taking lessons from Shannon on ways to make her feel bad about herself?
“You don’t get to say that,” she told him, going for indignant but having a bad feeling that her voice came out kind of whiny and hurt instead.
“Because you said so?” His tone was gentle. “I’m not being harsh. I’m just pointing out that what happened all those years ago obviously had an impact on you. I get that. But the rest of itis just a story you tell yourself. Did you and Ava bond? I have no idea, but more importantly, you don’t know either. Maybe she did everything right. Maybe she didn’t. Isn’t the more important question what you’ve been believing all this time and how it’s affecting you now? You’ll never know for sure what happened, but you can know what you’re willing to do next. From this second for the rest of your life, you can take control. If you want a different relationship, then have one. If you don’t, keep doing and thinking what you’re doing and thinking now.”
She stared at him. “You’ve taken a bunch of classes on selling, haven’t you? You’ve gone to those weird seminars where everyone has to scream out that they’re the greatest and then walk on coals.”
He grinned at her. “I’ve never walked on coals.”
“But you have gone to sales seminars.”
“Sure.” He shrugged. “I’m good at what I do, but I want to be better. What I do matters to me. It’s the same as the reason you belong to a screenwriting critique group. You’re not there to socialize. You want to learn and make your work the best it can be.”
She looked at him. “Before, when you pretended not to know about my writing, that was bullshit, right? Shannon had already told you.”
His smile was only a little smug. “She had.”
Figures. “I asked her to keep that private.”
He winked. “Hey, it’s me. Besides, Shannon and I are family. We don’t keep secrets. I’m the brother she never had, and she’s my sister. You can’t mess with family.”
She would never admit that she felt a faint stab of envy at his words. She would have liked a sibling or two in her life. Someone to care about, someone to watch out for who would also have her back. Honestly, sometimes it was exhausting to be her, and a trusted shoulder to lean on would be nice. But none of that was Javiar’s point.
“Yes, I want my work to be the best it can be,” she said with a grumble. “So I’m in a critique group, and I take classes. I watch movies and break them down, but that’s normal stuff. Not like your hold-hands-and-sing ‘Kumbaya’ workshops.”
“No one sings ‘Kumbaya,’” he told her.
“They’re singing it in their hearts.” She put down her partially finished Lego butterfly. “We should have sex.”
He didn’t even look up from what he was doing. “No, thanks.”
A flash of annoyance shot through her. “Have you seen me? I’m pretty hot, and I have some moves.”
“Oh, I know you do, and while I would enjoy every one of them, I’m going to wait.”
