Page 6 of Sincerely, Your Enemy

I found her on the dance floor, making out with some guy who had to beat leasta decade older than her. He started to protest when I separated them, but he shut his mouth real fast when I told him his dance partner was sixteen years old.

If you ask me,she’slucky I didn’t drag her out by her hair, andhe’slucky I didn’t sic the cops on his ass for messing around with a minor.

“Why do you always have to ruin everything for me? Jesus, woman, don’t you have a life?”

A bitter laugh rips from my throat.

Ididhave a life.

Before our dad lost control of his car on a rainy night and plowed right into a truck, killing both himself and the other driver in one fell swoop.

I had a future and plans and freedom. But I gave all that up because that’s what family does. We take care of each other—and yeah, technically, Oliver and Sierra are myhalf-siblings, but as far as I’m concerned, they’re more my family than my own mother ever was.

Now, my life revolves around them, and I’ve accepted that.

She should, too.

“Dad would’ve never humiliated me like that…” Her voice falls to a whisper. “I wish he was still here.”

Pain rises in my throat.

You and me both, sister.

“Yeah, well, I’m all you got. And it’s my responsibility to make sure you don’t go getting knocked up at sixteen.”

Her tone is venomous as she hisses, “Lucky me.”

What she doesn’t realize is shewaslucky.

She had an amazing father.

Clark Mattson might not have been a good partner—he got my mom pregnant their last year of college, only to break it off a month after I was born—but he was a good parent. At least, he tried his hardest to be.

When my mom wanted to move to Europe when I was a toddler, he took her to court. Nearly went bankrupt in the process, but he wasn’t about to let her take me away from him.

He was an honest man who got his college girlfriend pregnant and then fell in love with his coworker. Was it ethical? No. But he told my mom as soon as his feelings started to change.

Mom hated his guts after that, something she made clear by constantly bad-mouthing him in front of me, but he never once made me feel like I had to pick a side.

He and Patricia, the coworker in question, had Sierra a few years later. Then they had Oliver. In a cruel twist of fate, Patriciabailed when Oli was two. Gave up all parental rights and moved out to Florida to be with her personal trainer.

I found out shortly after my dad died and we started looking for relatives to take the kids in that Patricia and her beau had passed away in a motorcycle accident a year prior.

“How did you even know where I was?” Sierra asks.

“I called your phone.”

She frowns. “No, you didn’t?”

“Yeah, I did. Some guy picked up.”

She stiffens up, realization crashing into her. She immediately goes through all of her jeans’ pockets, panic stretching across her face when she doesn’t find it.

“My phone!”

She had no idea?

I thought surely she would’ve noticed by now.

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