Page 79 of Make The Cut

Now, though, I’m beginning to have second thoughts about this whole ‘forgetting about my worries’ thing.

I couldn’t entirely forget the voicemail from my dad announcing I have a sister. Named Sasha.

Sasha Sugawa. No. Sasha Romanoff. She took her mom’s last name.

I pull up the memory of what she looks like in my mind, trying to recall whether she resembles me at all. A skinny brunette with long, dark hair and a quick smile. Sweet. Innocent. Not someone who would hit up her celebrity brother for money or fame or a quick payout from the press.

Or so she seemed.

What if there’s something more sinister behind her friendship with Poppy? If she is my stalker, she must want something from me. Money. Popularity. A boost to her Instagram account. Whatever it is, I don’t want to be used. Not again.

Not by my own sister.

But as I walk onto the set ofMake The Cutfor the after-show I’m filming alone, I wonder if I should meet her before the wedding. If it would be a good idea for us to get to know each other. After all, we’re two sides of a coin, both abandoned by our father in different ways. Me, when he left my mom. Her, since he was never officially with her mother. At least, not until now.

Even though I should have been happy it was over, I couldn’t help but feel like I was missing something. Even though Rose and I had managed to make it through an entire season of filming without killing each other, I still couldn’t celebrate with those who’d won the cash prize and opportunities to work with Rose’s fashion line or my record label.

No, all I could think about was how Poppy should be here, and she isn’t.

Call me lovesick, call me a fool, but when she called in sick this morning, I felt like breaking down. I wanted to chase after her. Wanted to tell her I was sorry for what I said and how I treated her.

But I can’t. It feels like it would be the same thing as letting go of my pride, and my pride is what’s kept me alive for so long. What kept me sane. After my father left, it was all I had to shield myself from getting hurt again. From getting left again.

I pull in a deep breath as I change out of my outfit for the show and into a simple pair of jeans and a faded blue t-shirt. A text greets me when I pick up my phone.

Naoya, we need to talk. Please call me back. –Dad

Without thinking, I call him. To my surprise, he picks up right away. It’s the middle of the night in Japan, but he must still be up and about, because I hear what sounds like music in the background.

“You never told me I had a sister.”

“You never asked,” he says simply.

I snort. “Was I supposed to suspect that I had one?”

He sighs. “I thought your mother might have told you. Or that you would have pieced it together when Lauren came over to the house. You were always a smart kid, Naoya.”

“Not smart enough.” Tears burn in my eyes.

If I were, I might have known what he was doing. I might have known better than to idolize him as a kid. I might have known better than to let him keep coming and going from my life in sporadic phone calls and offers to visit him.

“Naoya,” he says softly. “I know there’s a part of you that blames yourself for what I did. I know there’s a part of you that wonders if I cheated because, well, because you and your mom weren’t enough for me. But I assure you, Naoya, that’s never been the case.”

Blame myself? I almost hang up just because of that. I don’t blamemyselffor what he did. I blame him. Wholeheartedly.

Yet his words keep me from hanging up even as anger surges in me, the familiar, bitter tang metallic in my mouth. Ihaveblamed myself. I’ve blamed my mom. I’ve blamed everyone, telling myself that someone else must have done something wrong, too, to make him stray. That one of us must have donesomethingto drive him out of our house and into the arms of another woman.

Because deep down, I didn’t want to believe that my father was capable of such a thing as cheating on his wife. I didn’t want to believe that he was capable of hurting us in this way. I certainly didn’t want to believe that he would just cheat for no reason, that he was a heartless monster who would commit senseless, cruel acts without any justification. I wanted to believe that he’d been provoked to do it. That deep down, there was something wrong with us—wrong with me.

Because maybe if there was something wrong with me, I could fix it, and we could be a family again.

“Then what is?” I whisper. “Why did you do it, Dad? Why did you have to hurt us like this, hurt my mother like this?”

He sighs, static crackling into the phone. “I did it because I fell in love.”

“What about my mom?” I say. “Weren’t you in love with her?”

“I was in love with your mom. She’ll always be—she’ll always be the woman who gave birth to you, and for that, I’ll always be grateful. But I love Lauren, too. We just started spending late nights, flying around, filming for the show, and one thing led to another… I didn’t mean for it to happen. But the more time I spent with her—“

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