“Maybe. He could be. I’m sorry.” My voice peters out. I have never felt so monumentally selfish in my life. “I don’t want you to have to be in the same room as him.”
Mum snorts. “I would happily share a room with him to support you. But I doubt he’ll be there.”
I look up sharply. “Really?”
“Do you know why your father doesn’t see you girls?”
I shake my head.
“It’s because he’s ashamed of himself. He carries this pile of guilt around, caused by nothing but his own choices. And every day he doesn’t parent you, doesn’t treat you the way he should, that guilt gets heavier, and when he sees you, is reminded of you, it becomes unbearable. What he doesn’t realize is the difference between short-term and long-term pain. If he put up with his discomfort years ago in order to do right by you—if he had taken responsibility for his actions and tried to make it up to you—that guilt of his might have gone away. Instead, he’s doomed himself to slowly die beneath it.” Mum shrugs like she hasn’t just blown my mind and dragged my father to filth. “George has always been good with his books, but he never was too bright. While I enjoy the fruits of my labor with two delightful daughters, I imagine his poor family is trapped in a Stepford Wives fan fiction that exists to protect his damaged ego.” She slides me a sly look of amusement. “I mean. That is only a theory. I’m sure he’s very, very happy.”
I’m surprised, at first, to feel the laugh bubbling up from my chest. But as soon as it breaks free, it feels like the most natural thing in the world.
“If he knows you’re going to be at this ball,” Mum says, “I doubt he’ll turn up. Too awkward. Too guilt-inducing. And if anyone realized you are his daughter and he doesn’t know you…well. He’s a partner at his firm now, isn’t he? There are standards of behavior to uphold. I doubt his abandoning of you and Giselle is common knowledge and I’m sure he wants to keep it that way.”
All of this makes sense, and it burns a little, but more than that, it satisfies me. I always thought it was my duty to make my father feel the weight of what he’s done. It never occurred to me that he’s suffering already.
I know I’m good at shoving my emotions down, letting them fester inside of me. Maybe that’s where I got it from.
Which only adds to my resolve to stop.
“But if it makes you anxious,” Mum continues, “the thought that he might be around, don’t worry. I will tell him not to go.”
My jaw drops. “How…how would you even talk to him?”
Mum shrugs one shoulder and flicks her turn signal, unconcerned. “I will go to his house, kick down his door, and tell him to stay away from my baby’s special night or else I’ll rip him a new—” She pauses and begins again. “I will motivate him, sweetheart. Don’t you worry.”
I dissolve into fits of laughter. Mum joins in, and for a moment I am free and light and certain that she’d really do it if I wanted her to. Mum has my back no matter what, and so does Giselle, and I don’t spend enough time thinking how lucky I am to have the family I do. They are audacious with their love, and that’s who I want to be. Not afraid of my feelings but fired up by them. I want to live my life with pride and as shameless as Neneh Bangura.
After all, I am my mother’s daughter.
THURSDAY, 8:54 P.M.
Celine: you were right btw
Giselle: always am
Giselle: about what tho?
Giselle: ????
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
BRAD
Recovering from a concussion is about as entertaining as watching paint dry. Lucky for me, I have heartbreak on the brain to spice things up a bit. When we get home, Mum puts all my stuff away （except my phone, lost that, trying not to think about it because fuck）， and makes the bed around me really smooth and tight like she used to when I was little. I get her to do it again because I enjoy it so much.
By the time Friday afternoon rolls around, though, even the bed thing isn’t making me less restless. I glare at a shadow on my duvet—the same shadow I’ve watched as it moved throughout the day with the course of the sun—and shout, “Mum!”
A few seconds later, she opens my door and sticks her head in, her giant bun wobbling like jelly. “What’s up?”
“Can I get up yet?”
She arches an eyebrow and purses her lips in a way that means, You’re testing me. “Do you still want to go to the ball tomorrow?”
“Yes.” No. Maybe. Celine’s going to be there, and I didn’t finish the expedition, so I don’t know why I’m even still invited, but I also know I can’t stay away. I’m hooked. Like a fish. Also, I have a purple suit that looks incredible on me.
“Then stay your backside in bed,” Mum says, and disappears.
“You’re being irrational!” I call after her.
“Drink your Lucozade!” she shouts back. Then I hear her say, “Oh. Hi, Celine!” And the bottom falls out of my stomach.
Celine.
Here?
Crap.
“Hi, Maria,” she says, her voice quieter than usual. She’s right outside the door. I have this urge to check how I look but then I remember it doesn’t matter and I don’t care. I can’t care, not if I want this constant ache to one day fade away. So I lean back against my bed’s overstuffed cushions, breathe out hard, and tell myself to relax just as a knock sounds at my bedroom door.
“Yeah?” I ask, then wince at the ragged edge to my voice.
“It’s…Celine,” she says. I think she was going to say It’s me, the way she has done for the last few months. The way she used to when I was very nearly hers.
“I have your phone,” she says, like she’s bartering, and I realize I haven’t answered her yet.
“Yeah, okay, come in.”
The door opens and she’s standing there in a black and gray tennis skirt and her favorite Metallica top. There’s a notebook held against her chest like a shield and she edges toward me as if I might pounce. Her eyeliner, those two butterfly wings again, is sharp. Her mouth is a blurry coral pink.
Thinking about Celine’s mouth is not a good idea.
“Hey,” she says.
“Hey.”
Her gaze catches on my hair for a second—I took my twists down because my head aches, so it’s rippling all around my face. If I was smart, I’d shake it into my eyes and never look at her ever again, but I’m trying to be mature, here.
She goes to sit down on my bed.
I make a noise like a negative game show buzzer. Clearly I’m not that mature. Her gaze flies up to mine and I know she’s remembering the day I went to see her after she fractured her wrist, when she did the same thing to me. Her eyes light up with humor, her lips curve, and I’m smiling back at her before I can remember she’s the reason my heart hurts so bad.
God. It’s just impossible not to be Celine’s friend.
She walks around to my side of the bed and gets on her knees.
I am appalled. “Celine, come on, I was joking.”
“Were you, though?” She arches an eyebrow.
“Well, no, but I’ve changed my mind, get up.”