Oh boy. That didn’t sound good.
“Is Eddie okay?” Ani asked, sounding concerned.
“Of course he is,” Jasmine said, smiling. “Your father will take care of everything. Don’t worry.”
A pall fell over the table. I heard what she was saying, but Ifeltdiscombobulated. It was as if I’d just been told that a relative I’d thought was long dead had been found alive. Suddenly everyone felt sorry for Eddie, including me.
All those texts I’d sent… Maybe he hadn’t been ghosting me on purpose after all, huh?
I felt terrible. Awful.
Scum of the earth.
I was the worst girlfriend in the history of girlfriends.
Fen scooted his chair away from the table and stood. “Fuck that. There’s more to this story, and I’ll bet my entire record collection that this is Eddie’s fault.”
“Fennec,” his mother cautioned. “Do not disparage your brother in front of Jane.”
He glared at her, muscles tense, fist on the edge of the table. Nobody said a thing. My chest felt as if it were going to collapse under pressure.
I realized I should say something. But what?
I was trying to balance on one tiptoe above an active volcano, and how was this any better than sitting on the railing of the dam?
It wasn’t. I could speak up now and end this. Come clean. Tell Jasmine that I was seeing Fen. She already knew. Didn’t she? Maybe? And if she did, then maybe her having me here today was some kind of endorsement of Fen. Fen and me. That thought made me feel slightly less sick, just for a moment—that someone else might know our secret, and they weren’t spitting on us, telling us what horrible people we were.
I should just tell her. But I was already an interloper, and everything in this house felt as if it were so fragile. Schisms already existed. I knew that before, but sitting here in their family home, with the twins? It was all too real now. The whole family might beripped apart. And what could be more priceless than this? I would give anything just to have half of what they had here, the family photos and the bickering and the comfy couches and the mother who was trying to keep them all together.
I couldn’t ruin this. What was I going to do?
“Jane?”
I blinked at Fen. He was squinting at me, a worried knot between his brows.
“I just…” I looked around the table at staring eyes and felt like a coward.
Fen’s hand lightly touched the back of my shoulder. “Hey. Want a tour of the villa?”
I swallowed. Cast a look toward Jasmine.
“That’s a fine idea,” she said, not sounding enthusiastic. “You can take the boat out.”
Fen tapped me and whispered, “Come on.”
“I heard there’s a bowling alley in Mad Dog’s lodge,” Ari said. “But we’ve got a new popcorn machine in our home theater.”
“You can leave the popcorn in it and still eat it the next day,” Ani said.
Jasmine waved us away, but anyone could see she was troubled. Fen inherited his dark seriousness from her. Because with her arms crossed at the table, it looked as though a storm settled over her in the sunny afternoon light as I followed Fen and the twins around the terrace to a flagstone path down the hill. And I wasn’t sure I’d made the right decision by keeping quiet.
But what could I do now?
I wanted to talk to Fen, but we weren’t going to get any time alone—I could see that already. By the deep sighs and eye rolls he gave Ari—who had volunteered himself as unofficial tour guide—he was aware of it too.
However, we all stuck together, traipsing around the grounds of their home. They showed me their basketball court. A sauna that only got used on the coldest days of the year. Their father’s speedboat. A firepit area near the shore where Ari had once stepped on a nail that went through his foot—he took off his shoe to show me his scar.
Dear lord, these twins didn’t stop. I gave Fen a look as we headed back inside, and he smiled so big, it did something to me. He adored them, and he was so happy to be home. “I feel like I should go soon,” I said in a low voice while we wiped our feet on a mat by the door. “So you can spend time with your family, or whatever…”
