If only I had the guts to tell my mom the truth, that she needs to give me space, that I’m happier without my family breathing down my neck—or more accurately, I’m happier when I don’t need to be confronted with their bulldozing and bullying.
I’m able to return to my knitting for a few minutes when my cell phone rings again, and I know who it is. The other half of the double-team.
“Hi, Lizzie,” I answer, tossing my needles and yarn aside again.
“Hey. How’s the head?”
“Getting better. Why are you calling me?”
“Just wanted to talk. Can’t a girl call her sister after she was in the hospital?” She sounds almost cheery, and I brace myself for whatever it is shejust wanted to talkabout.
“I guess,” I mumble, and Lizzie prattles on about random things for a few minutes until she finally gets to the issue.
“So what’s the real deal with you and Nico?”
“What do you mean?”
“Give me the details. He’s a pro hockey player. I mean…”
She means there is no way he could ever actually love me, marry me.
“What do you want me to say here, Elizabeth Ann?”
My sister hates her full name, and she makes a sound of disgust on the other end. “You don’t need to be like that. I’m curious, is all. What’s it like being with him?”
I thumb the gold ring on my finger. The one that he gave me in the hospital to save me from embarrassing myself with my family. Only so I can embarrass myself now, on the phone with my sister. “Why do you want to know so bad?”
“Why won’t you answer the question? It’s like you can’t or something. Why?”
“Because I don’t want to. We like to keep things private.”
She huffs on the other end of the phone call. “He seems fine with not having privacy. He’s all over the internet. I’m surprised Mom hasn’t found him yet.” There is a threat there in the undercurrent of Lizzie’s words. Especially when she says, “Waylon did some research on him. Are you sure you can handle him? He’s a fuckboy.”
“That was before.”
“Was it?”
“Clearly, you wouldn’t believe me anyway, so it doesn’t matter. I love Nico, and he loves me,” I say, shocking myself athow easily the lie slips off my tongue. Maybe I need to see a psychologist. I think I might be a sociopath.
“But why do you love him? He’s not the type of guy you usually like.”
She’s right. The type of guy I like is the one she’s currently with. Waylon is soft-spoken and sturdy, and I don’t think I’ll ever experience that kind of heartbreak again in my life—seeing them together. Even with all the bullying and ostracizing, something cracked in me that day, and I’m not sure it can ever be put back together. Between Waylon and me, but also between my sister and me.
It was the straw that broke the camel’s back.
I gather up the little dignity I have left and scrape together a few words I hope can get her to back off. “Nico’s not afraid of anything, and he makes me feel brave. That’s why I love him.” And just because, I add, “Aside from the way he kisses and touches me. The boy earned his reputation for a reason, and I reap all the benefits.”
Lizzie coughs out a sound of amazement, and I can’t believe those words came out of my mouth either. I close my eyes, waiting to hear her response, and it takes a few moments for it to finally come. “Well. Lucky you, then. Apparently you found more than good makeup in Philadelphia, didn’t you?”
I force myself to relax, even allow myself to smile. Because…is that jealousy in her voice?
Envy from the beautiful and popular Elizabeth Ann Atkins, former Miss Teen West Virginia?
I tuck this feeling away, holding it for the next time she or someone else inevitably pulls me back down, and I tell my sister, “Yeah. I found my future husband, and I need to get ready to go see him, so…”
It’s clearly taken the wind out of her sails, and I must be missing some part of my soul to delight in taking her down a few pegs. After all these years, I’m glad she finally feels it.
Disappointment.
