Page 57

She stomps over and sits on the stoop next door to Jake and Meg’s house Other guests arrive and walk up their stairs. How her ass isn’t frozen, I have no idea. But I join her, giving her distance.

“I don’t know what to say. Who was that person? You solidly burst whatever bubble we were in. How could you think any of that?”

“The target thing?” My shoulders slump a little as I say it, and I look down at her feet.

Her voice is cold and cruel still. But there’s a pang of hurt. I fucked so much of this up. She says, “Fuck yes, the target thing.”

“That was so over the line. I was all spun up in shit my sister told me, and—”

She stands and drops her purse onto the ground. She stomps away, then back. Throws her hands up in the air.

“Lisa?! Your sister.” I shrug. “You’re shitting me. This is your source? The same sister who fucked my boyfriend in college? The sister who purposely would cancel plans with my friends behind my back? She’d tell them I couldn’t make it to parties. I used to think my friends were standing me up as I waited to be picked up. Lisa, the one who called my high school to warn my teachers I was a danger to myself? My parents threw me in intense therapy for that one.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“You never knew any of this? She tried to dismantle my life so I only had her to depend on. I distanced myself. The only fucking reason I stayed in touch was so maybe I could get a glimpse of you!”

My heart plummets to my cold toes. My sister and I are done. I stand and pull her to me. “You wanted to see me?”

She’s stiff in my arms, but the mask is sliding away. Her eyes are clear and true.

“Always. But she was awful to me. I think I’ve always felt this way about you, but she convinced me not to. I was too young and stupid to realize what she was doing. I came home my sophomore year. Your girlfriend was home, too. We were all at the traditional Christmas party, and I walked in on your sister getting it from behind by my boyfriend of almost a year and a half. She said she did it to prove to me he wasn’t right for me. That she was only helping me. It was always to ‘help me.’”

“She’s fucking pathological,” I yell. Jillien pulls away. She paces a bit, and I let her. I see her working herself up. Then, when she turns back to me, I can see her spirit return and vow to myself to never again be the one who douses it.

“Not this fucking time. She doesn’t take one more thing from my life. Listen up. Here are your fucking answers to her concerns. After I tell you this shit, I’d appreciate it if you could think for yourself in the future.”

My heart beats double-time. Maybe she’s not leaving me.

“I promise.”

“Christopher was, indeed, dating someone else when we met. He broke up with her before we slept together in my junior year of college. When he graduated, he was already in the habit of cheating on me. I found out and we decided to work it out. We moved into a tiny studio in Wrigleyville, and I went to work. He lived off his parents while he found himself.”

“That came up, too. That you never worked.”

“What the hell? I worked for a wedding event company and supported us. I had a minor in education. I worked as a substitute teacher for extra money. I came up with the idea of ChiKid while working both jobs. Then I got pregnant. Finally, Chris was making good money directing local commercials and industrials around town. Or so I thought. But he was still living off of his parents.”She’s pacing and scaring the fuck out of me.

“I didn’t know any of this.”

She’s possessed as she speaks. “Then you should have fucking asked in a manner that wasn’t a cross-examination with the assumption I was guilty.”

36

JILLIEN

I can’t fucking believe Lisa is still ruining my life. I don’t know why she ever did any of it. And I never even knew all the strange shit in my life was because of her until she fucked my boyfriend. Then it spilled out of her like she was proving she always had my back. She’s insane. And Liam is here. He didn’t leave. He didn’t go away, and I ache to run to him. But I need to push through this fucking story, so he trusts me. And so I can move past it all. I’m going to kill Lisa.

“When Chris’s parents moved into their Palm Beach house, they offered us the house if we got married. So we did. His mother asked if I could stay home with the baby. It was important to her. It killed me, but they were giving us so much. But I don’t regret that decision at all.” He runs his hands through his hair, and then scrubs his face, making annoyed sounds, but he doesn’t interrupt me.

“Six years later, Chris had a pregnancy scare with one of his many dumbass PAs, and it got back to me. When we found out the test was negative, I told him to get the fuck out. I never told his parents or anyone he cheated. In return, he tried to give me the house for Ethan. He had no fucking money because he’d been keeping an apartment and several girlfriends on the side. I didn’t know he’d been borrowing money from his parents all along. His parents contested our divorce. Not us. They did it behind his back. It took every dime of my secret savings, but I won. Then I took all the equity out of the house and sent Christopher, via his parents, a check for the house’s value. Then I refinanced the rest of it so the mortgage was mine. I scrimped and saved and worked all the overtime. I proofread medical journals every night when I wasn’t picking up extra shifts in the City’s event department and working a full time job and being a mom. I pitched ChiKid in the middle of a pretty exhausting year.

But two months from fucking today, I’ll have paid off my house. It will be all mine, and I did it by my fucking self, making double, sometimes triple payments. I traded math tutoring to my hair stylist and reading tutoring to my mechanic. I wore my shoes until they wore out and only Ethan got new clothes on the regular.”

I collapse onto the stoop again.

He stares at me, then says, “I’m in love with you.”

And suddenly, my body is awash with pins and needles. They overtake my face, and I fight the urge to cry with joy. I’m lighter. We still have to contend with all of this, but he’s in love with me. It doesn’t feel like a Band-Aid. It feels like it’s supposed to. He steps to me, then reaches down and places his hand on my cheek. I look up at him with different tears in my eyes.