Page 84 of Lose You to Find Me

It does now.

Clearing my throat, I sit straighter. “So yeah. I guess I sort of cheated on him. We’d been seeing each other, but not seriously. We hadn’t defined anything. Hadn’t shared rules or boundaries. I’m asking you not to tell him, Sky. Can you keep this between us?”

When I eye her, I wonder what she’s going to say. Will she tell DJ as soon as we leave here? Will he tell Caleb? It’s a game of telephone, but how much of the information will be right by the time my ex picks up the phone?

Skylar sits back in her chair. “Raine, I think you need to tell him. You didn’t do anything wrong. Do you really think it’s fair to put yourselves through all this? Especially Caleb when he’s going through enough?”

The one thing I’ve learned about life without needing to study the psychology of it is that it isn’t fair. We’re tested every single day by the choices both we and other people make. Maybe if that were different, if I didn’t take the easy route out, I would have been tempted to make things work with Caleb.

That’s not the path I chose though.

So I answer honestly. “No, it’s not.” I press my lips together and stand, tugging on Sigmund’s leash to get him to stand. “But that’s life sometimes. Right?”

All Skylar does is frown.

“I’ll talk to you later, okay? I should probably get working on this project before I get any more behind.”

She nods. “Okay. Talk later.”

I don’t know if I trust she’ll keep quiet, but I don’t have the energy to care.

*

The next fewdays are more of the same. I don’t call my doctor because I’m afraid to. Mom sneaks out and sneaks back in from doing God knows what. I work on the end of semester assignments and try compiling all my notes into a cohesive paper, work my shifts at Bea’s, and try keeping to myself.

Key word: try.

Mom is quiet at breakfast as I slide some of the scrambled eggs I make onto two separate plates and place some of the pancakes I made onto one for us to split. I burned the first three, but it’s better than the entire batch I butchered the first time I attempted to make them a few weeks ago for us.

When I turn to place her food in front of her, I frown when I see the pinched look on her face as she stares at some of my homework sprawled across the other half of the table.

“I never understood why you loved this stuff so much,” she tells me, shaking her head. “It was like overnight you decided you wanted to help people with their problems.”

I sink into the chair I pulled out for myself. “I don’t know if it was overnight, but I like helping people. You know that.”

I’ve always been that way—holding doors open for people, offering a listening ear, being the mediator between Mom and Dad. I know they’re the biggest reason I am where I am.

It could be worse.

“Well, when did you know?” she asks, causing me to arch my brows. I didn’t expect her to wonder because she rarely asks about school beyond the basic “how was your day” in passing.

I never cared. It was easier not to get into the details when she was such a big part of everything. Picking up my fork, I move around some of my eggs and say, “I guess it was when you and Dad started fighting more.”

They always bickered about something, no matter how small. Dirty clothes or dishes, not having any groceries, the house being messy, the lawn not being mowed. I used to think it was normal. Because it was to me.

I can’t look Mom in the eyes when I add, “It was the day we were supposed to go see that new musical in the city. I remember being excited because we hadn’t been sinceCatscame out, and you guys said we could go see the Statue of Liberty and Empire State Building. But then Dad got a work call about something that couldn’t wait until we were back, and we never went.”

It was one of their worst fights. I’m not sure what all was said, but it wasloud. It wasn’t the first time I heard them argue, but it was the first time Mom left and didn’t come home until the next day. She was crying when she walked out the door, that much I knew for sure. She tried hiding her blotchy face and red eyes, but I was sitting on the other side of the bookshelves that faced the front door, so I saw everything.

When Dad found me hours later in the same spot to tell me dinner was ready, he promised that she’d be back.

“She always comes back,” he told me.

And I remember thinking to myself,but why?That question led to the next five, which turned into hundreds of questions about why anybody does the things they do. I wanted to help Mom and Dad, but I knew I wasn’t the fix for their main problems.

“We weren’t that bad,” Mom tells me, rolling her eyes. “Don’t be so melodramatic. You were never abused. You had a roof over your head and food in your stomach. We rarely told you no. I’d hardly say you had it bad growing up because of us. There are far worse people you could have wound up with as parents.”

Typical.“You always do this,” I exclaim in exasperation. “You complain that I don’t talk to you about things, but the moment I do, you accuse me of being dramatic. Just because you never beat me as a child doesn’t mean I was in a stable, happy environment. You and Dad had a lot of problems, and I got to be the witness to them all.”

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