“It’s ironic,” Andie said, “that the girl who has everything still behaves as if she has nothing, still mopes up here feeling sorry for herself.”
“I don’t have everything,” Birdie said. “I am very bad at math, for example.”
Andie clenched her jaw like she was about two seconds away from losing every last ounce of her patience. “Why is Elliot calling you so desperately? When you just saw him yesterday.”
Birdie moaned and forced herself upright, leaning back against the headboard.
“It’s complicated,” she said.
“No shit,” Andie answered.
Birdie looked up at her sister, who seemed like she knew more than Birdie had expected.
“What does that mean?”
“It means that anyone with eyes and even an extremely limited emotional IQ knew that you were in love with him since puberty.”
“What? That’s not true. That’s not accurate atall.”
Andie pinched up her face. “Come on, Birdie. You can be more convincing than that. You’re a better actress thanthat.”
“Whatever you think you know—”
Andie waved a hand, stopping her. “I know that when we lived together in LA, I saw you make a series of truly trash choices. I saw you choose a bad man over a pretty good one. And I suspect that you had already long ago chosen an even better one.”
“Elliot,” Birdie muttered.
“Elliot.” Andie nodded, plopping on the bed, unspooling next to her.
They lay in silence for a long beat. Birdie rolled on her side toward her sister and noticed that the aquamarine hue in the sweater Andie had swiped from her really brought out the gold in her irises, made her blond hair even more golden. Birdie should have shared more often, more generously with her—it would have cost her nothing.
She hesitated, deliberating.
“Elliot and I slept together. About seven years ago,” she said finally.
Andie’s eyes grew to globes, and she clamped both hands over her mouth, like she was trying not to scream.
“I know,” Birdie said, and allowed herself to grin. That in a normal world, if she were a normal person, she could share such a delicious juicy detail with her sister and revel in it.
“And?” Andie asked. She turned onto her own side, so they were parentheses now. “And then?”
“It was... it wasn’t realistic. It could never happen.”
“Why?” Andie asked.
“It was Elliot’s decision,” Birdie said, her shoulder rising, then falling. “I can’t blame him.”
“You can blame him however you fucking want to!” Andie said, and Birdie jolted back, like she honestly couldn’t believe her sister was taking her side. Or maybe she couldn’t believe that after the past few weeks she’d had, anyone who wasn’t on her payroll was taking her side. “He doesn’t just get to sleep with you after all those years, then decide that it was a mistake. He is such a manwhore,” she added.
“I don’t think that we can saymanwhoreanymore,” Birdie said.
“Fine. Whatever. Start at the beginning. Spill everything.”
Birdie sighed and blew out her breath, steeling her nerve, steeling her guts. She hadn’t told anyone about any of this. Not back then, not since. It was embarrassing, humiliating, made her feel exactly like she was back in high school, itchy and ready to flee.
Then, in what she considered a real display of growth, she met her sister’s eyes and decided that maybe she should say it anyway.
35
