Page 66 of The First Love Myth

I shoot a look at my mother, who is shaking her head with pursed lips. “Mom.”

“What?” She takes a sip of her wine. “There’s a time for lying, and that was it. She could’ve been nicer about it.”

“Evie would never lie about something like that. She would think that it would stunt my emotional growth.” Even saying those words makes my heart hurt. I miss her psychologist voice and her prying and her digging.

Anna snorts. “I think your growth was stunted long ago.”

“Mom!” both Liz and I exclaim at the same time.

“Oh, eat your naan. You’ll feel better.”

I take an exaggerated bite, and yes, I do feel better. Carbs are magical. “How are you feeling, Liz? Still sick?”

She pauses with a forkful of rice halfway to her mouth. “Clearly not if I’m eating Indian food in the middle of the day. The doctor said it’s normal this close to the end of the first trimester to start to feel better. Stop changing the subject.”

I roll my eyes. “There’s nothing to talk about. We broke up. End of story.”

“But you love her.” The rest of her thought—and you never love anyone—hangs in the silence between us.

It’s such a Liz thing to say. Even after everything that happened with Julian, she’s still a hopeless romantic. If you love someone, let them go. If they come back, they’re yours. How many times has she spouted those lines? And Julian always comes back. Even now.

But Evie isn’t coming back.

“And Evie thinks I can’t truly love someone until I forgive Dad. We’re at an impasse.” I clamp my mouth shut. I didn’t want to get into the details, but Liz’s prodding makes me want to prove that I’m right. That my relationship is forever and always doomed.

“You know, honey,” Mom hedges. She rarely hedges, but then I’ve never blown up at my entire family before and then left the state. “Forgiveness doesn’t make you weak.”

My sister nods encouragingly. “It doesn’t mean you have to suddenly have Sunday dinners with Dad.”

“It might make you feel lighter.” Mom looks down at her hands, her left thumb going to her ring finger unconsciously. It’s been one of her tells for years. “Carrying all that weight around, it’s too much for anyone.”

I turn my attention to my sister, annoyed at this tag-team effort that’s seventeen years too late. “Are you going to forgive Julian?”

“I forgave Julian a long time ago, Cee,” she says. “That’s sort of the point.”

“Will you take him back?”Againgoes unsaid but it’s clear we all heard it.

At this point, I honestly don’t even know what makes more sense or what I want her to do or even what she will do. Liz andJulian are Liz and Julian. They do things like this, and somehow it works out in the end. And not in an icky way where you wish they would get a divorce, but in a fully committed, sickeningly sweet way that makes you believe in love. Now there’s the baby. But a baby is no reason to stay in a failing marriage.

“I don’t know,” she says. Her hand drops from view, and I know she has it pressed to her bump. “I don’t think I’ll know until, well, until I know. We haven’t seen each other since before... and he was with someone when I called.”

I shift in my seat, pulling my leg up under me. I wonder if Liz’s “before” is Spencer or the baby or Julian’s cheating. But all I say is “Someone?”

“Sheila. Definitely Sheila. But I can’t be mad at him for that, can I? I mean, I slept with Spencer and had no intention of...” She pauses and chews at her bottom lip, her eyes going from me to Mom and back. “How did you know, Mom?”

Our mother looks over at her, surprise etched into her features. “About your father?”

“Yeah,” Liz says, taking a sip of water. “The other night you said youhadto divorce him.”

Mom plays with the food on her plate, her eyes unfocused. “I might have been able to forgive him the affair, but I couldn’t raise the child that came out of it. And he was always going to keep her. I mean, that woman gave him no choice, but even if she had, your father would’ve used every legal connection he had to get custody of Zoey. I couldn’t look at him without pain. There was no hope or love mixed in with it.

“One day, he walked into the house after work, and I remember I was cooking spaghetti and meatballs in bulk for one of your team dinners, and he came into the kitchen, and our eyes met, and something clicked. I knew our marriage was over. The next morning, I asked him for a divorce.” She sighs and finallylooks up at the both of us. “All that is to say, when you see Julian tomorrow, I suspect that you’ll know the way forward.”

Liz nods and picks up another piece of naan.

“Either way, we all have your back—me, Mom, Zoey, and Dad.”

The names are awkward in my mouth, but I try because she’s my sister, and she needs to know that she isn’t alone in this. Her village will include all of us, no matter what.

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