The elegantly casual way he sat in the breakfast nook sipping coffee while he worked at his laptop didn’t fool me. The set to his mouth warned me of the dressing down seconds before it came. Of course, something in my movements must have given away my plan to escape the second the Keurig had finished brewing my morning travel mug of wake-up.
“Pippa says you didn’t fly with her.”
“Good morning, Dad. How are you? Long time, no see.” I opened the fridge and extracted a carton of creamer.
I have no idea how he did it from his seated position, but he stared down his nose at me. “Don’t be flip, Piper.”
“I wasn’t. I haven’t seen you since the Fourth of July party you and Mom threw at the lake house. So I thought I’d ask how you are.” Nodding to his laptop, I said, “Looks like you’re busy as always.”
After stirring mint mocha creamer into my coffee, I replaced the carton in the fridge, grateful that Betsy, our housekeeper, had remembered it was my favorite.
“It’s unfortunate you had to leave us last summer for that internship. But you must accept that your decision to leave while you and your boyfriend were having trouble contributed to the current state of things.” He typed something and closed his computer. “It’s unbecoming of you to be jealous of your sister after Charlie broke up with you that week. He only started dating her after she consoled him as any good friend would.”
Only quick reflexes saved me from blowing my first sip of coffee all over the kitchen floor. I rinsed my hand in the sink and checked to make sure I hadn’t left a mess down the front of my favorite ski sweater. When I faced my father again, he jacked a brow. “Don’t act like this is your sister’s fault.”
My gut roiled.Pippa and Charlie got together at the lake house?We were all back on campus together for two weeks before classes started. During that time, he came over for movie night and he and I snuggled on the couch while Pippa sat in the recliner and stuffed her face with popcorn. He picked me up for dinner and she barely acknowledged him—as usual. Nothing was out of the ordinary until the afternoon of The Fuckery.
After successfully downing my second sip of coffee, I said, “So that’s the story they’re going with. Wow.” I blew out a breath. “All righty, then. I’m off to break my old record of runs before lunch. Catch you at the usual spot.”
“Piper. You have to stop ignoring your sister.” His tone landed somewhere between commanding and resigned, which allowed me to keep walking through the connecting door and out into the garage.
My fault? Dad was blaming me for Charlie cheating on me—with mysister?
What. The. Fuck?
I rattled some goggles resting on the shelf near the ski storage closet when I slammed my mug down on it.
My fault?My sister pursues my boyfriend, my boyfriend takes what’s on offer, and Dad blames me for wanting nothing to do with either of them?
The sound of fabric groaning before it tore interrupted my rant as I jerked my ski pants from a hanger. After a cursory inspection for damage, I yanked them on. My hands were shaking so hard it took me four tries to zip my ski jacket. When I shoved my feet into my ski boots, I noticed the tears.
The two people I trusted most in the world had betrayed me—with each other. All my life I’d loved Pippa with everything I had, even before our parents had basically abandoned us when they sent us to boarding school at twelve and fourteen. Her goofy smiles, her silly flights of fancy, they always made me laugh. Her light blue eyes would snap with mischief whenever she dreamed up a prank I knew was trouble before I went along with it anyway. We were a team, Piper and Pippa against the world.
In one afternoon she’d burned a lifetime of sisterhood to the ground.
I swiped at the tears and jammed my helmet on my head. With one last swig of coffee, I was determined to put a stop to my useless emotions. After spending all of September crying myself to sleep every night as I alternately missed the shit out of her and tried in vain to make sense of what she’d done, I thought I’d spent all my tears. These stragglers had no place dripping down my face—especially not here when any of the fam could see them—and, based on my latest convo with Dad, obviously misinterpret them.
Snagging my skis, I hoisted them onto my shoulder, grabbed my poles, and headed out the back door of the garage for the short walk to the lift. Having a condo right on the mountain came with certain perks I truly appreciated at the moment. With any luck, I’d hit the chair right as the lift operator was firing it up for the day. If Mom and Pippa stayed true to form, they’d barely make a run before it was time to meet up for lunch.
I might not be hungry then.
As I trudged up the mountain, I wracked my brain for any sign I’d missed that something was going on between my sister and my ex when we were at the lake. While we were there, Charlie and I hadn’t argued, and we most definitely had not split up, his lies notwithstanding. Other than him teasing Phillipa as one would tease a younger sibling, I couldn’t come up with a single example of the two of them showing a romantic interest in each other. Still, there had to have been something. Of course, that little bomb Dad dropped in the kitchen a few minutes ago had been a revelation. After I left for my internship, Phillipa and Charlie were together at the lake house. In front of our parents.What thehell?
Charlie and I had Facetimed every night during my internship, including while he remained at the lake with my family. When he’d arrived at school a couple of weeks later, everything between us was the same as always.
Wait.Maybe not the same as always. Before The Fuckery, Charlie had been especially sweet to me, but sex had dropped off considerably. Mostly, he wanted blow jobs and dropped off to sleep immediately afterward. When I’d asked, he’d said he was gearing up for fraternity elections and working on student senate proposals until late at night and was worn out. Things would improve once school started. It had pissed me off, but still, I bought his BS. Now that I thought about it, Phillipa hadn’t been around the apartment much in the evenings before the semester started.
I smacked my hand on my forehead. How could I have been such an idiot? God, I was clueless. The two of them had probably spent more than a minute laughing at how easy it was for them to sneak around right under my nose.
But that didn’t answer the important questions. Why didn’t Charlie just break it off with me once he took up with Pippa? Why were our parents apparently fine with the change in our situation? Why did they think I should be fine with it? Because no doubt Mom agreed with Dad. The two of them were always of the same mind about everything.
As I ploughed through a drift on the path, a thought struck me. As in every other situation where I’d paved the way for her, it seemed I’d spent two-and-a-half years warming up Phillipa’s first serious boyfriend for her. Of course. My feelings for the guy didn’t factor in. Again, I was looking out for my sister.Jesus. Is that what they all thought? And Charlie was fine withit?
How in the hell was I part of such a fucked-up family?
All my life my parents had expected me to watch out for my sister, pave the way, make things easier for her. For twenty years I’d done my best. I could never understand why she didn’t win more contests, acquire more accolades, and have more friends than me. After all, I’d done everything I could to help her make those things happen.
When I was president of the business club at our boarding school, I’d put her on the best marketing and business systems teams to help her go to State, yet her teams always fell short. I stayed after archery club meetings to help her with her form. After I graduated and went to college, she dropped both the business and archery clubs. Even though I didn’t have a clue why she’d want to be one, I did my best to console her when she tried out for cheerleader and didn’t make the team—two years in a row.
