“I can’t change the things I’ve done.”
“No,” I respond. “I guess you can’t.”
My gaze bounces between his brown eyes, a hard ridge indented between them. “I just need to know, do you feel bad? If you could go back and change things, would you? Or would you still skip my birthday brunch to get laid?”
I miss hearing the window to the left of the sliding door open, but I do recognize Olive’s gasp and the startled,“Oh my god,”that comes afterward.
“I hope you’re happy with what you’ve done, and the hearts you’ve broken in the process.” I walk around him, entering through the sliding door while chaos annihilates me, prickles of anxiety making my arms shaky.
Mom stands against the partition of the dining room that leads into the kitchen where I walk through. Drying her hands on a dish towel, there’s a funny expression on her face. One I can’t place. While I’m sympathetic for her over Dad’s betrayal, my sister is my current priority.
Olive, back in her chair at the dinner table, stares down at her plate setting, the window behind her open and a breeze ruffling the pinned back curtains.
No matter what she heard—which wasn’t anything good—she certainly knows the truth now. I just hope she won’t take it out on me, that she won’t feel betrayed over me not telling her sooner.
I approach slowly.
Ever since we were little girls, whether it was good or bad news, she’d grin through it and focus her energy on the positive. If she couldn’t find it, she’d dance through it, but that was before she fell for a boy in high school who used and abused her kindness. She struggled like hell during that time to find a blessing in a haystack full of needles. And when it was too much, she’d go to the studio and dance until her feet bled. She’d ask me to wrap her feet when she’d come home, and she’d sit in the bathroom and cry streams of tears. But it wasn’t her feet she’dcry over. It was the aftermath of what happened with her and that boy.
I’d let her sit there and break down like a supportive sister rather than getting on her case about bad choices and the stupid ways boys fuck up. I’d circle my arms around her and hold her until she had nothing else left to cry about. That is, until Mom and Dad took control and made her see a doctor who eventually put her on anti-depressants.
I never want her to relive that time of her life.
“Olive?”
She blinks twice and tilts her head in my direction, eyes filled with a feeling I know all too well. “I, uh…I wasn’t trying to eavesdrop.”
If he and I were having any other conversation, I’d call her a liar and reminisce over all the times I’d find her ear pressed against my door when she was in junior high, curious to know what me and my girlfriends talked about during sleepovers.
“I know,” I tell her delicately. I sit in the seat next to her and rub my palm down her back. “Are you okay?”
“I’m trying to process.”
“What did you hear?”
She looks at me, and it’s at that exact second I realize I don’t need an answer. She heard way more than was intended, but maybe this is a good thing. I planned on telling Mom eventually, but I wasn’t sure what I was going to do when it came to Olive, too scared that she’d take it too hard.
In a small voice, she asks, “Is it true?”
“Yeah. It is.”
“He…”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
I glance over my shoulder, noticing that our mom isn’t in the room anymore. I’m not sure where she went, probably to figure out what the hell is going on from dad.
“Because I didn’t want you to be upset about it.”
“I don’t understand why he’d do something like that.”
“Me either.”
“For how long?”
I lift my brow. “Has he been cheating? I have no idea. You know how we always have brunch with him on our birthdays? Well, I was waiting at the place we picked, but he texted me that he had a meeting. You know how he gets busy or needs to stay late sometimes. He said it was last-minute. I figured I’d take him food. My plan was to leave it in his office for when he came back. I opened the door and saw Nina straddling him. I dropped his food on the ground, Olive, then bailed.”
