“What?” I asked, frowning. “How would they know anything?”
The opening notes my dad played on the piano made my stomach drop. I hissed at my mom and made a neck-chopping sign. She smiled at me and waved, then put the microphone up to her lips and sang, “Oh-oh,oh-oh,oh-oh, oh-oh-oh!”
My dad accompanied her, his usual besotted wedding singer expression on full display as he beamed at my mother from his seat on the piano bench. The notes of Beyoncé’s “Single Ladies” echoed in the dining room. My mother danced the classic “Single Ladies” dance as she sang, and I imagined my flesh melting into a gruesome puddle on The Pier’s patterned carpet, a fitting end to a pathetic life.
Gideon stared at my parents, then at me. If the past week of distance hadn’t convinced him, and this morning’s tension hadn’t done it, my parents surely had pushed him over the edge. He would never want to be with me. It had been foolish to think he ever would.
A pit opened up in my stomach. This really was the end. There was no coming back from this. Gideon had realized that I was more trouble than I was worth. He’d decided to let these six weeks come to an end so he could keep his business while we went our separate ways.
And now his decision was obviously the right one, because who the hell would want to marry intothisfamily?
I burned as my parents performed, turning as Mrs. Gretzinger came to stand next to me. She watched the show, then looked at me. “Do you know these people? They were asking about you.”
“It’s generous of you to pretend like you don’t already know they’re my parents,” I replied.
Her lips twitched, and that made me feel a little better. “Would you like me to ask them to leave?”
“They’ll tire themselves out soon,” I said, shifting my gaze to watch them again. I hoped they would, anyway. Glancing at Gideon, I tried to read his expression and failed. He wouldn’t acknowledge me, and he looked completely blank.
Finally, I marched out of the dining room and plonked myself down on a sofa in the lobby to wait. My eyes stung. My chest felt hollow and cold. My parents’ arrival was a stark reminder of what my life had been like before I’d come to Marswood Harbor.
And now I would have to go back.
Gideon didn’t follow until the sound of my parents’ song died down and scattered applause took its place. A moment later, he walked out with them. “And you have no idea of anyone who might want to cause her harm?” he asked.
“Sadie? God, no! No one would even care enough to want to hurt her!” My mother let out a laugh as she shook her head. “If you only knew the number of boyfriends who had dumped her. None of them were jilted lovers who wished her ill. They mostly just wanted to get away from her.” She clapped her hands and turned to me. “Now,” she said, smiling. “We’ve booked a new place for our little family shindig this year, seeing as we needed more room. Everyone issoexcited to meet you, Gideon. Aren’t they, Barry?”
“They surely are,” my father replied, nodding.
And wasn’t it the funniest thing, that the family ski trip would be the thing that put me over the edge? Not losing thelove of my life. Not the thought of leaving the town that had become my home. Not the certainty that I had never been—and would never be—enough.
It was the fucking pull-out couch that did it.
“No,” I said, standing up from my seat.
My mother blinked at me. “Excuse me?”
“I’m not going.”
“Honey—”
“I’m not, Mom. I don’t care if I get a real bed in a real bedroom this time. I’m sick of being treated like I’m inferior.”
“We never?—”
“I’m not going!” My voice echoed in the lobby, shrill.
“Honey, you don’t have to beembarrassedjust because your husband is, you know…”
“Oh my God! I’m not embarrassed by his scars! I’m embarrassed byyou!”
My mother reared back, gasping like I’d slapped her. Her lips twisted, and she looked me up and down like I was worse than dog shit smeared on the bottom of her shoe. “I don’t know what I did to deserve you, Sadie.”
“Funny. I was just thinking the same thing.”
She spluttered, then turned to my father, who put his arm around her and gave me a disapproving look. “Really, Sadie, after we came all this way?—”
My mother sniffled and looked at Gideon. “You can do better,” she told him. “In case you were thinking you had to settle because of your…” She gestured toward his neck and body.
