Page 79 of The Snowball Effect

Shewantedto tell Regan that her advice was a lot easier said than done.

But a much bigger part of her wanted to take Regan’s advice. Wanted to lean into it. She desperately wanted to move beyond this limbo she was in with her mother. The one she had been in for months, maybe even years, though it had been much easier to avoid, before.

“All right.” Regan sighed, slowly sliding her hand from Emma’s arm. “I’ll get back to it; a fake girlfriend’s work is never done.”

Her put-upon tone pulled a hoarse laugh from the back of Emma’s throat.

Regan paused with her hand on the doorknob as she looked back at Emma. “You got this, Thom.”

She stared at the spot Regan had been standing in for several long moments before clearing her throat and dragging her hands through her hair. If nothing else, Regan had already bought them a ticket out of there, and Emma held onto that as she let herself out of the bathroom.

As she quietly pulled the door closed behind her, her eyes latched onto the photos that lined the wall of the hallway.

She’d glimpsed them during her tour but hadn’t looked too closely.

There were, perhaps, too many photos for it to look truly balanced or artistic or whatever interior designers aimed for. But all of them reflected the happy, grinning faces of the family that lived in this house.

The family that had movie nights together every Saturday. The family that had bickered, playfully, over how big of a pool was big enough to have in their new house after leaving Miami.

There were photos of her mom and Ted together, a whole smattering of Eva and Everly – individually and together. Birthday photos, school pictures, family photoshoots. So many pictures of her mom with her sisters, living their quintessential childhoods. Not in any way reflective of the childhood she’d experienced with their mother, nor had she been a part of it when this new family had been built.

Yeah, there was that sickening feeling again.

Everything inside of Emma froze as her eyes landed on a photo of herself. On… a few photos of her, actually, she realized as she looked closer.

The biggest, most prominent Emma photo was from her senior yearbook. Hair done up, posing as directed by the school photographer, a muted smile on her lips.

There she was at her eighth birthday, where Kimberly had surprised her by not only showing up but also lugging a box of beginner chapter books – Emma had been elated by both things.

There she was at her seventh-grade science fair. Kimberly had – again – shocked her by showing up. By twelve, Emma had learned not to expect her mom to make it to school events. And when she did, she knew her mom would show up – the only parent from Emma’s grade that was still in her twenties – wearing bright, flashy clothing cut inappropriately short. Kimberly beamed in the photo, her arm slung over Emma’s shoulders. At twelve, she’d been hitting her growth spurt, so she and Kimberly had been nearly the same height. She was smiling, but adult Emma could see the embarrassed, hurt strain starting to form underneath.

There was the selfie Emma had taken with her gram when she’d been accepted into NYU. At the very least, that one made her lips curl into the ghost of a smile. Gram’s grin in the picture was as big as Emma’s.

And then her smile froze in place. There she and Kimberly were, in the hospital after Kimberly had given birth to her. Emma couldn’t recognize herself in the photo – to her untrained eye, she, Eva, and Everly all looked exactly the same in these freshly born pictures. But she knew this one was her because Kimberly was justsoyoung compared to the other two.

She looked like… like a kid. Which she had been.

Emma had no idea when Kimberly had gotten all of these photos from Gram, but – obviously – she had, at some point over the years.

“Emma,” Kimberly’s voice startled her as she stood a few feet away, pausing at the other end of the hall. “I,” she flicked her eyes to the photos Emma had clearly been staring at. “I, um, see that you’ve found the family photo wall.”

“Yeah.” Emma clasped her hands together, feeling distinctly like she’d been caught doing something wrong. “Sorry.”

Kimberly nearly tripped over herself as she jumped forward. “No! No, please don’t be sorry. It’s okay – it’s better than okay! You should look.”

But Emma didn’t want to look anymore. She wanted, more than anything, to leave. In fact, she wanted – startlingly – very badly for Regan to return to her side, for her to swoop in and save this conversation.

She didn’t know how to hide her discomfort, and she knew Kimberly could feel it; it was oppressively strong. She hoped, futilely, that her mom would just let it go. That she would let Emma leave without another word.

Emma had never been that lucky.

“I know Regan said you two have plans. And it’s really sweet of her to take you to the bookstore; you’ve always loved a new book.” A wide, soft grin slid over Kimberly’s face as she gestured without looking at the picture of her bringing Emma books for her birthday. “But – maybe you can stay for dessert? Just a little while longer? You don’t have to stay for family movie night.”

Not only could she hear her mother’s hopeful tone, she couldfeelit, and it cut like a knife.

Unable to stop herself, she looked again at the slew of pictures on the wall. At the family that had family movie night every weekend.

“Sorry, but we can’t stay,” Emma’s voice was rough as the words escaped her.

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