Page 106 of The Roommate Lie

“I told you we’d have to talk about this eventually,” our mother singsongs, and he sighs.

Talk about what?

“Girls,” our dad says slowly. “I think it’s time to talk about how your mother and I met.”

Emma rolls her eyes. “We already know. You met on Christmas Eve when you were home on leave—when Grandma wanted you to hang up more lights outside, but it was too icy. Mom was your ER nurse.”

We know this story by heart; we love this story. But my mom’s face is still scrunched, and she tilts her head from side to side. “Or…that’s when we met again—the second time. And the first time we met was in prison.”

My dad coughs out a laugh. “The police station—not prison. We met at the police station. And the fact that you don’t know the difference just proves you’ve never been to prison.”

She shrugs. “I would’ve gotten there eventually.”

He coughs out another laugh, both of them sharing an “aren’t you adorable” glance before we can get them back on track. Emma’s shock does the trick.

“The police station?”

Our dad shrugs. “I was nineteen, and my uncle’s wedding ended in a fistfight. We all got arrested, even Grandma.”

Emma blinks, and I think all this altitude has left me lightheaded. And prone to hallucinations. “Grandma got arrested for fighting at a wedding?” I manage.

“Technically, Grandma and I were just eating cake when the cops showed up, but we might’ve thrown a little too…”

Emma blinks again, and our mother nods.

“But I was there because I’d gotten caught shoplifting. Again.”

“Shoplifting?” I whisper.

“Again?” Emma squeaks.

“I had a rough childhood. I’d like to say I got in with a bad crowd, but I was the bad crowd.” She pauses to give my dad another loving glance. “Until I met this really cute guy when I was waiting to get fingerprinted at sixteen, and he suggested I might want to clean myself up. So I did.”

I knew some of this about my mother already—that she’d had a rough childhood. Her parents haven’t been in the picture for years, and she even spent some time in foster care. But the rest of it is news to Emma and me, the shoplifting and getting arrested. My sister looks horrified, as if this is not the meet cute she ordered, but I think it’s better. More honest and full of rough edges.

“It’s easy to end up well when you start well,” my mom tells Emma. “But it’s something else to have to fight for it. To have the odds stacked against you but turn out okay anyway.”

She pauses to glance at me. “I like Charlie. Maybe we should all keep in touch after we leave.”

She tries to make that sound casual, but I can sense my mother’s intent. The way she’s searching my face like she’s trying to decipher how I feel about him. I want to play it cool—my feelings don’t matter if he doesn’t like me back—but my face flames, and I glance at my father for help.

He’ll get me out of this. That man doesn’t like anyone, especially not for his daughters. One nice objection from him, and my mother will forget all about me and my bright red face. And I can forget about my feelings for Charlie—because that man will never like me half as much as I like him.

Except my father betrays me. Instead of protesting, he shrugs, and my face flames harder. “Maybe you’re right,” he says. “Maybe we should keep in touch. Charlie’s not the worst guy in the world.”

To anyone else, that might sound like an insult, but Kilpatricks know high praise when they hear it. Coming from my dad, “not the worst guy in the world” is basically a five-star review.

I glance at Emma next, my angry little failsafe. She’ll dump some rain on this Charlie parade. If anyone can set me straight and tell me all the reasons this will never work, it’s her.

But she’s still a little dazed from story time. All she can manage are two measly words, neither of them about Charlie.

“Shoplifting?” she mutters.“Arrested?”

Our mother’s big secret renders Emma useless for the rest of the afternoon. I’m useless too, but for a very different reason. By the time I drop my family off at Muriel’s and head back to Charlie’s, I’m still useless. All I want to do is see him and hear how his interview went.

The second I walk in, I know something’s wrong. I hear the music for Moonglow Prairie in the living room, see my sister’s face, and my stomach ties itself in knots. Nicki isn’t crying, but I can tell she has been—recently—and my sister never cries.

Her laptop is hooked to the TV, so their video game is larger and easier for her to see, and they’re too busy fighting skeletons in a forest to notice me at first. After they kill the last skeleton, a puff of purple smoke envelops the woods, and a small man with a pointy red hat appears. My sister cackles with delight, her voice still a little wobbly from crying. “Gnomes!”

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