Page 30 of The First Love Myth

Cecilia

Liz scurries around the living room, shoving things into her purse and slipping into her sneakers. “Let’s go.”

She’s serious. She wants me to come with her on a two-hour drive to pick up the half sister I never wanted.

“Isn’t Julian getting her?”

“Yes,” Liz says, her patience waning. “Until I can get there.”

“Shouldn’t Dad be dealing with this?” I hear the bitchiness in my voice, but I can’t tone it down. Liz is in so deep that she can’t even realize she’s asking me to do the unthinkable. I do not involve myself in Zoey’s affairs.

She narrows her eyes and juts her hip out. Totally pissed.Great. “She calledme,Cee.”

“It’s at least two hours from here. You can go in the morning. She’ll be fine with Jules and Jane.”

That is apparently the wrong thing to say. Her pissed-off face goes to full-on anger in an instant. It’s a face I’m all too familiar with. There’s a special button that only sisters can press, and I clearly jumped on it.

“What is wrong with you?” she hisses. “Zoey has literally never done anything to you in her entire existence.”

A fire blazes behind her eyes, a sisterly indignation I’ve only seen on Liz once before, and then it was given on my behalf and aimed at my ex-boyfriend. I never thought it would be turned on me. How could I when I only partly accepted the fact that I havea second sister? A half sister whose facial features reflect my own more than Liz’s ever have. A half sister I can barely stand to look at, let alone save. But that look on Liz’s face. If I don’t recognize Zoey now, I’ll lose Liz forever. Not some clean-cut estrangement, but a painful and desperate loss that will wear at me for days and weeks and months until I can’t remember what a real relationship with my sister feels like.

“I know that.” The words are but a whisper, but the admission is more than I’ve ever given. It does little to appease my sister.

“That asshole slept with her best friend then sought Zoey back out for a summer fling, and there’s absolutely no doubt that he will bring another girl back to that house to prove whatever point he feels necessary.”

“You’re right.”

If she hears me, she doesn’t show it. “I’m driving there now, Cee, before this catastrophe gets any worse.”

How could it get worse?Zoey dug herself a monstrous hole, and finding her way back out will be messy and painful. It will break her before it ever builds her back up. She is going to have to lose him again, and for keeps. Liz has never been able to do that with Julian. But I have. Our dad’s betrayal left me broken and confused and so untrusting that I pushed my college boyfriend away until there was nothing to come back to. Before Evie, he was the last love in my life, and I lost him for keeps because of me. If I hadn’t already been broken by my family’s trauma, it might have been the worst pain I’d ever felt.

“Either get in my car or get out of my way,” Liz says, finishing her tirade.

“Let’s go then,” I say, conceding, making my choice. Because I will always choose Liz.

She blinks, and her expression softens. Her shoulders sag, and her arms drop to her sides. “Seriously?”

“Someone’s going to have to keep you from pummeling that kid.”

She nods, unspoken acceptance passing between us. This is enough.For now.

Chapter 26

Zoey

The gentle creak of the rocking chair against the old wooden porch soothes me. I hadn’t been able to find words when Julian showed up or after he secured me in the car and went in search of Andrew or when he came back, cheeks flushed and anger radiating off him. Even in the safety of his sister’s home, words beyond pleasantries escape me. Emotions too strong to verbalize swirl inside me still. They are bursting to be released but also holding me hostage.

Finding Andrew and Claire together was a swift, clean-cut wound. Two of the most important people in my life were there, and then they were not. At least that’s how it felt. There weren’t talks to save either relationship. Their absence became a haunting reminder of what once was. But the second I kissed Andrew by the pool, the clean edges of the wound dirtied with infection, healing ceased, and now I’m septic.

Coming down here was a mistake from the beginning. I knew it when he asked. I knew it when I showed up at his house this morning. Going wasn’t about Andrew or my misguided feelings. It wasn’t about getting away from Ardena. It was always about winning. I wanted to beat Claire, and this was the only way I knew how, a fact that makes me completely and utterly pitiful.

A flash of Andrew’s face malignant with anger brings back the night’s memories. I cringe away from them, literally and mentally, desperately pulling anything but that look of disgust tomind. That only brings the image of Claire riding Andrew.God, no. Why does my brain hate me?Please. No. My fingernails dig into my palms, the pain bringing me back to myself.

Julian stands in front of me. He offers me a beach-themed coffee mug.

“Hot chocolate.”

“It’s ninety degrees out,” I say, taking the mug.

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