Page 112 of Love Me Tomorrow

He shakes his head. “I can’t. If I had asked, then I wouldn’t have Amelie.” He takes one hand off the wheel to grasp my sister’s, bringing their intertwined fingers to his mouth so he can kiss the back of her hand. “You are the best of your mom,cherie. Her zest for life. Her inquisitive nature. Her need to push the boundaries of what is acceptable and what isn’t. But I’m sorry to say that your worst traits—those are all that belong to me.”

Amelie hiccups a watery laugh that pulls at my heart. “I’m more of a thorn than I am a Rose.”

Dad sends her a quick, hopeful smile. “Only the best Roses have a thorny nature, Am. Lucky enough for our branch of the family, we’re all rather untamed.”

Dad pulls up to our family home, a nineteenth-century Greek Revival that we moved into when I was twelve. It’s a bright teal with white and magenta trimmings and in possession of so much character that it’s always been the talk of our neighbors.

There, sitting on the front steps, is Mom.

Her long hair, tied in braids, hangs down the length of her back. A shocked gasp nearly leaves my mouth when I realize that she’s still in her PJ’s, fuzzy slippers and all. I try to look at her as Dad sees her, as this woman who is just like Amelie—rebellious and revolutionary and real.

And then her head jerks up at the sound of Dad parking the SUV along the curb, and I see it: not a single tear graces her face. She’s composed and queen-like, a fighter at heart, but then the façade slips, threatening to crack and unfold, and reveals her true colors.

She launches up from the porch steps, her slippered feet walking fast, then running, until she’s at the passenger’s side door. It’s yanked open and then my mom, the one woman who always told me to be brave and to keep my head held high when the girls made fun of me in school, leaps into the car as though the passenger’s seat is meant for two.

Her arms come around Amelie’s shoulders, and her husky voice whispers, “You’re home,” and then my sister breaks.

Her sobs fill the SUV as she’s huddled on both sides from our parents, after being unceremoniously shoved up onto the center console like she’s five years-old all over again and can actually fit there without her knees bopping her in the chin.

Then get back up.

I stare at my family, feeling particularly waterlogged myself, and think of Owen telling me that memories can’t ever exist on a sliding scale. If we axed the brutal one of Dad lashing out in hurt, then we wouldn’t have this one now—and, possibly, we never would.

I kick my chin up. “Is there room up there for one more?”

In unison, Dad and Mom throw their arms open wide. And at thirty-five, I somehow find myself in a family huddle in the front seat of my parent’s SUV. I’m practically chewing on Amelie’s knee, and sure enough, my mom’s jaw is a little pink from when I tried to get comfortable but only managed to clock her in the face with my elbow instead.

It’s perfect.

No, it’simperfect.

And that makes it all that much better.

34

Owen

3:37 p.m.

I don’t know the precise number of seconds, and if you asked me, I’d probably tell you to fuck off because the difference between one second and five seconds and thirty seconds wouldn’t change a thing in the end.

At 3:37 p.m., the world found out.

All it took was a click of a button, some asshole namedCelebrity Tea Presents—a fact that I’d discover way later, when I finally tuned into the news—and an even bigger asshole listening in to my conversation at Rose & Thorn last Friday night, and life, as I knew it, was obliterated.

It started with a phone call—some jerk-off named Mark White who wanted his appointment canceled.

No big deal. Cancellations happen at every business. I didn’t give it another thought.

But then the phone rang again, and this time it wasn’t an existing client, it was someone new, someone who breathed heavily into that goddamn headset, wherever they were, and had the balls to say, “You should be ashamed of yourself for lying for all these years. Nobody wants a fuckin’ colorblind tattoo artist.”

My heart twisted and my stomach plunged, and when the phone rang next, I had to force myself to pick it up. Someone fromUS Tonightwas calling, wanting a tell-all exclusive where they’d pay me just shy of a hundred grand to tell the world how I managed to live under the radar for so many years.

Like I was some sort of criminal stowaway—still—and not someone born with a different genetic trait than the Average Joe on the street.

Like I was nothing but a goddamn story for them to hem and haw over, then plaster in every grocery store all over the country before forgetting I exist two weeks later.

Meanwhile leaving me to deal with the fallout.

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