“Who you wouldn’t even try being friends with,” I remind her.
“It felt like he was always trying to compete for your attention,” she says.
“Are Sarah Beth, Claire, and Kassidy really that busy that they can’t even make time for your birthday party?” I ask.
She throws herself back against the love seat and groans. “They said it was a little-kid party. I never see them anyway since they started eighth grade, and they’re busy all the time with, like, clubs, and I think Sarah Beth has a new boyfriend. I don’t know.”
“Asecondboyfriend? That’s probably more than I’ll have in my whole lifetime.”
Kiera snorts. “Me and you both.”
We both laugh, our shoulders bumping together until we’ve quieted down and are watching the ceiling fan spin above us. I have one more question. “So now that your cool older friends are too busy for you, you’re ready to be friends again?”
“I’m not perfect, okay? I’ve wanted to talk to you for basically the whole year. But I didn’t know how to make things go back to the way they were. It’s not like you were trying to be my friend either.”
“What about eighth grade?” I ask, remembering the letter I responded to last night. “What if we just change too much again?”
Kiera looks at me, like every bone in her body is as serious as can be, and I think this is what I like most about her. “A lot of things have happened that I never thought would happen. Your parents got a divorce. Mine are on the vergeof strangling each other, and Cooper won the class spelling bee even though he misspelled his own name on his cubby. So I bet we’ll change a lot in the next few years and even more before we graduate twelfth grade, but we can try to do it together. If you want?”
Most people would probably turn to me and promise me that things would never change. But Kiera never makes promises she can’t keep. And who knows what will happen, anyway? What Kiera’s offering, though, feels like the kind of promise we could keep. “Yeah.” I nod. “I’d like that.”
“Enough with all this serious talk,” she says. “Can we finally check out your dad’s spare bedroom? I want to know what he’s hiding.”
I suck in a deep breath. I don’t feel so good about this. “Sure,” I finally say. “But it’s probably nothing.” At least I hope so.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Behind Door Number Three
I’m just as curious as Kiera—if not more curious—but some weird part of me would rather not know what’s behind the door of Dad’s mystery room. It’s like the same way my nerves are on the fritz every time I go to the doctor, because I’m scared they’re going to tell me I’ve got some incurable rare disease. And if I do... honestly? I’d just rather not know.
But curiosity and peer pressure win out, so after pressing my ear to my dad’s door to make sure he’s asleep, I wave Kiera down the hall.
When I make no move to open the door, Kiera reaches out and turns the doorknob. We’re greeted by a pitch-blackroom, so she takes the lead and feels her way along the wall until she finds a light switch.
Whoa.
I don’t know what I expected, but this is not it.
It’s like an art studio. Full of easels and paint with canvases propped up against the wall and the drop cloth Dad uses at his job during the day to protect the floors.
Kiera steps ahead of me to take a look around. “I knew your dad was a painter, Sweet Pea, but I didn’t know he was apainter.”
And he is. He really is. I wondered what Dad might be doing over here in all the hours he’d always filled with me and Mom. Now I see. Paintings of me. Me with Cheese. Grandma. Even a woman who looks like Miss Flora Mae. All of them with bright, popping backgrounds. Lime green. Fluorescent purple. Blinding yellow.
They’re not art-museum good (actually, I’ve never been to a real art museum, so what do I know?), but they’re good in a different kind of way. One canvas leaning against the wall is the only one not of a person or Cheese. This one is two identical houses side by side. No house in between. It’s the perfect-world version of my mom’s mirror-house plan.
“Hey!” says Kiera. “I love this one of you and Cheese!”
She holds up a canvas, and sure enough it’s me. Waves tamed into curls, black-and-white-striped turtleneck, myfavorite black corduroy skirt, and a double chin. I’m sitting on a wooden chair, and Cheese sits curled in my lap. The background is a bright mustard yellow that fades at the edges into the white of the canvas.
My cheeks blush at the sight of myself. I see all the details that stand out to Dad when he looks at me—my hair, my smile, my eyes. It’s like I’m seeing myself through someone else’s eyes. The most artistic things I’d ever seen Dad do were his seasonal window paintings, and those were mostly turkeys or peppermint wheels, but this is real, actual art. “Wow. This is...”
“Beautiful,” Kiera finishes.
I nod. “It is.”
After we do a little more snooping around, we’re sure to leave everything just as we found it. We head back to my room, and Kiera and I decide to share my bed. One difference between Mom’s and Dad’s houses is that at Dad’s I have a bigger bed with plenty of room to share.
