Page 46 of You Belong With Me

“No,” Lavender said, crossing her arms, with her glare trained on Sebastian. “Let’s talk about it now. If you think for one second that I don’t care about our family as much as you do?—”

“Well, you clearly don’t!” Sebastian yelled. I’d never seen him get angry like this before. It was the kind of angry you only got when something was piling up for weeks and weeks, until you finally exploded. He’d been holding himself together remarkably well for the last month and a half, taking care of his sisters and making sure his family could hold itself together, but all those emotions had to come to the surface at some point. And unfortunately, I had a feeling that bottling up all his feelings about Lavender for the last month and a half meant that now they were all going to explode. “You tore it all apart! After everything I did, after all the work I put in to make sure that you guys would grow up with a father, then you just turn around and?—”

“The workyoudid?” Lavender snapped. “You think this is all about you, Sebastian? You think you were the one holding them together? It was Mum who was fighting to keep them together. It was her marriage that she had to keep, not yours!”

“And why do you think she could do that? Why do you think she could focus on Dad and keeping it together andmaking sure that none of you knew?” Sebastian’s face had turned red. “Do you have any idea how hard it is to be the one kid who knows it all? Who knows all the secrets and has to keep it from everyone else? You have no idea how hard I worked to make sure you three didn’t see it!”

He stepped back, breathing hard and clenching and unclenching his fists. We all stared at him in shock. Even though he’d talked about it with me on the field last night, I hadn’t realized just how much of a toll the information had taken on him. He told me he didn’t understand how the others couldn’t see it, but he’d neglected to mention the part where he did everything he could to make sure they didn’t. But it made sense, didn’t it?Being the oldest child is like being the third parent. He had to step up and be everything—the marriage counsellor between his mom and dad, and the protector for his younger siblings. Living with the weight of the world on his shoulders, making sure the family was held in perfect equilibrium so nothing would go toppling off. Then Lavender found out the truth and threw the whole board over.

Lavender’s face went slack. “You knew?” Her voice was quiet—not angry anymore, but just shocked. Like she couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “You knew the whole time and you didn’t say anything?”

“Of course I knew,” Sebastian said. He backed away another step, running his hands over his face, and I glanced down the road nervously, hoping no other cars would come by where they might not notice him on the road. But we were in a pretty deserted part of town and the road was empty. The only sign of civilization around us was on the other side of the guardrail, where houses were lit downbelow. I stared at the collection of lights and wondered what was going on in all of their houses. Were any of them like me, having the silent treatment between family members, all existing in the same space with no words spoken? Were there some like Lavender and Sebastian, fighting and airing truths that should have been shared over a month ago? I bet there were a number of parties going on now too, just like the one I’d gone to with Sebastian and Dean a week ago now. How bewildering it was, to see them all from up here and have no idea what was happening inside. Just like I’d had no idea what was going on in the Novak’s house and they’d had no idea what was going on in mine.

“But how could you not say anything?” Lavender asked Sebastian. Her voice was a cross between pleading and disbelieving, like she wasn’t even sure how to feel about the situation. I wondered if that was how Sebastian had been feeling since the moment he found out the truth about his Dad. He’d probably been at war with himself for weeks, wondering if he should confront him or if it was better to sweep it all under the rug, to put on a smile and pretend to be the happy family everyone thought they were.

“Because we needed the family to stay together! Because you and Ainsley and Imogen needed your dad—your family.”

“Family?” Lavender echoed incredulously. “You think that was a family? Everybody hiding around and keeping secrets for each other, nobody saying what they actually mean? That wasn’t a family. It was a prison.”

The words, even though they were directed at Sebastian,were a shot in the heart for me, because I wasn’t sure there had ever been a more apt description of my own family. She wasn’t wrong that it felt like a prison. I looked at Dean, wondering if he heard it the same way I did, if he recognized the way that Lavender was talking about what their family had felt like. His face was pale, even in the glow of her yellow-toned headlights, and I had a feeling he felt the same as I did.

“Nobody’s family is perfect,” Sebastian said. “But it doesn’t matter how you and I felt about it—Ainsley and Imogen need their dad. They deserve to have him there. Have you talked to Ainsley lately? Have you seen the way his leaving hurt her?”

“She’ll be better off for it in the end,” Lavender said, though she sounded a little unsure. “Better to grow up knowing who her father really is than to live in a family full of lies and find out later that none of the happy facade was real.”

“I wish you’d never gone out that night,” Sebastian said. “I wish you never saw him and ruined it all.”

“Oh, for the love of everything, just stop!” Dean yelled suddenly. “I can’t take this anymore, I can’t!”

Lavender and Sebastian both went quiet. I didn’t dare make a sound as I watched my brother, waiting for his next words. I wasn’t sure why he was choosing to get in the middle of this when I thought it was best to leave it alone and stay back. Sibling fights, as we knew from experience, were generally pretty ugly and better to stay far away from.

Dean looked at Lavender over his shoulder and though he didn’t say anything, her reaction was clear as her eyes widened and she shook her head like she was telling himnot to do something. But Dean just sighed and looked at Sebastian again. Lavender grabbed his wrist in a tight grip, but Dean ignored her.

“Lavender wasn’t the one who confronted your dad,” he said. “I was.”

twenty-three

Before that moment,I never thought I could feel the world spinning. But as Dean’s words registered in my mind, I swore I could feel us all moving in circles, getting faster and faster with every word spoken after, making me dizzy.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Sebastian asked. His voice was quieter now—no longer a yell, but an unbelieving whisper.

“Your dad,” Dean said. “I’m the one who saw him. He was out on a date with some woman at a restaurant. I saw him and I confronted him.”

Sebastian stared at him like he couldn’t believe the words he was hearing. I couldn’t blame him, because I couldn’t believe them either.

“Lavender was out with her friends and she saw us in the parking lot of the restaurant. She heard the yelling and—” He cut himself off, dropped his head. “I’m sorry, Sebastian. I thought I was doing the right thing by making himtell your mom. I didn’t know that you...” His voice broke again. He looked away.

Sebastian looked at Lavender, his demeanour deflated. “You let us all think it was you.”

My thoughts caught on the word “all.” He and Ainsley and Imogen all thought Lavender was the one who confronted their dad. Did they all blame her the way that Sebastian had?

“I thought that was easier,” Lavender admitted in a quiet, broken voice. “I thought it was easier for you to blame me than...” She slipped her hand into Dean’s and squeezed. I watched it, feeling almost numb. “I’m your sister. You have to live with me. I knew you would have to forgive me one day, but... After the way you reacted, I was scared that if you knew it was Dean, then you would cut him off. You would cut off your best friend just because of what happened. I knew it would all be just misdirected anger at Dad. So, I let you blame me.”

Sebastian looked a little sick. He pressed a hand to his mouth and stumbled away.

“It was easier,” Lavender insisted a second time. “You all thought it was me anyway. It was for the best.”

“You two love each other,” Sebastian said, spinning back around, pointing at each of them. “You’re in love, right? Because you wouldn’t have done that for somebody you didn’t.”

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