Page 14 of Tell Me When It's Over

“Not as often,” I admit carefully. The last thing I want is her blaming herself, which she’ll undoubtedly do. Truth is, I’ve been thinking about buying a place around here for when I visit that way I don’t have to stay at Mia’s. This just pushed that decision along faster. “She’s doing well. Dating some retired actor that you didn’t get to meet the other day. They’ve been together a long time. He seem

s nice. Better than Harry. Treats her well.”

“I’m glad.” I know she means it to, making me smile down at her. She knows family is the world to me. While I may not be on good terms with my sperm donor, I’ve always looked out for my mom and sister. Their happiness is mine.

I serve us pizza in the kitchen, and we carry it to the living room to eat, taking opposite sides of the couch. Her bare feet are tucked under her while she eyes mine sprawled out on the coffee table. I get the hint and drop them to the floor, chuckling when she nods in approval and bites into a boring plain cheese slice.

She’s never wanted anything different. I made her try pepperoni once and she all but spit it out. Even her mother, who I hated agreeing with more than I did Harry, told her she was a picky eater and needed to expand what she tried.

Not wanting to buy more than one pie, I suck it up and split a large plain cheese with her. It isn’t often that I eat this kind of thing. My trainer would probably skin me alive if he knew I scarfed down three pieces tonight.

Lenny reaches for the glass of water on the table and takes a sip. “We could watch TV or something if you want. I know you hate eating in silence.”

I lift a shoulder. “Then talk to me.”

She blinks, the pizza slice frozen halfway to her mouth. “About what?”

“Anything, Lele. We still have a lot of catching up to do.” Even though we’ve seen each other every day the past few weeks, we haven’t gone into details about what we’ve been up to over the years. She admits she still follows me on social media, so she sees the basic shit I post to stay relevant but doesn’t know anything else. I don’t even get that curtesy with her because she has no accounts anymore. “Start with why you got rid of your social media.”

Setting her pizza onto the plate, she turns her body toward me. “I didn’t really have anything to share that I wanted people to know. It isn’t like I had many friends to keep in touch with when I left, and I wasn’t sure if you…”

Putting my food down, I say, “You weren’t sure you had me.” Watching her nod made my chest tighten. “Yeah, I can see why you’d think that. But I need to clear something up with you here and now. Me leaving had nothing to do with you. Not really. I was always planning on getting out of here. I’d had enough after seeing things go down between our parents.”

Katherine was exactly what I made her out to be from day one. A gold digger. She was always after my family’s money and the fame that came with being attached to the Bishop name. The affair she had with Harry when she was younger was her golden ticket, and she cashed it in when shit got tough. Leighton was a pawn that she used like the rest of us and I wished she hadn’t been. Honest to God, I wish I could go back and change how her mother’s choice impacted her. But then there’d be no Lenny, no friendship, and I’m not sure I’m selfless enough to say goodbye to that again.

I still don’t know how Katherine did it, but the game she played got her a lot of expensive crap. Fuck, it got her a diamond ring after only a few months of living with us. Mom divorced Harry’s cheating ass long before Katherine showed up, and the gold digger used that opening to implant herself into our lives. I never liked her, and Mia only tolerated her for Harry and Lenny’s sake.

“I’m always going to feel bad about what Mom did to you guys,” she admits softly, drawing her knees up to her chest. “I know you and Mia have told me not to, but I should have known. She was always up to something.”

I nudge her foot with mine. “You couldn’t have truly known because you saw the best in her. I don’t know how, but you see the best in everybody. It’s refreshing.”

“It’s clearly faulty.”

I chuckle. “Nah. You could be cynical about everyone like I am. Trust me, that’s no fun. Be grateful you have a sunnier outlook.”

Her head tilts. “Why not try trusting people more often? I’m not saying be like me but give people a chance.”

No matter what, she hasn’t grown up like me. It’s what makes us different. She’s only experienced a taste of what it’s like to come from Hollywood royalty. People see the last name and associate it with fortune—money and material things. I never want her to know that being cynical comes with this lifestyle.

“Are you finally going to tell me what you’ve been up to the past few years?” Changing the subject makes her bite into her bottom lip, but she indulges me with tales of working at a local fast food joint for minimum wage while attending school before having to drop out. That still makes me twitch, but I try not to let her see it. At least she’s telling me something. I can tell the other times I’ve asked, the look she gave me in return was one of shame and hesitation.

Apparently, she spent the two years following our parents’ separation flipping burgers and taking people’s orders. The money went toward bills and groceries because Katherine didn’t stick with a job long enough to make ends meet every month on her own. They got evicted from three different apartments in the span of that time, with no help from her family because they refused to acknowledge her “troubling past”. I remember Leighton telling me that her mother came from a religious family. Not only did Katherine laugh at their beliefs, she walked all over them. She partied, hooked up with men, then ran away to Hollywood the first chance she got, where she ended up meeting Harry for the first time during a commercial for some product he sponsored. Getting pregnant out of wedlock years later sealed their fate.

“I can’t say I miss them,” she explains long after our pizza is gone. She’s lounging on her back, her legs propped on the back cushions and her hair waterfalling over the front of the couch. “I didn’t know my grandparents all that well, except that Grandma always smelled like moth balls and sugar. I’m pretty sure I heard through the grapevine that my grandpa passed away last year but I don’t know.”

“Sorry to hear.”

“Like I said,” she murmurs, rolling her head to look at me, “I don’t remember them. I mean, it’s sad, but I have no real relationship with them. Mom always made them out to be bad people, but I think they just wanted what was best for her.”

I want to point out that they could have tried to have a relationship with her, but I don’t. I’m not about to squash any decent thoughts she might have of them.

“Mom and I lived out of the car your dad bought her for a little while. Only a couple weeks, but they were bad. It was hot, cramped, and embarrassing. A cop knocked on the window once and told us to move.”

Rage fills me in an instant. “How come you never reached out sooner, Leighton? I know I made it seem like I didn’t want to talk, but you had Mia.” I hate that I shut her out. If I’d known…God. If I’d known, I would have done something that might never have led to this.

She nibbles her lip and looks back up at the ceiling in avoidance. I don’t say anything else until she answers me. “I did talk to Mia. Not often, but sometimes I would use Mom’s phone to check in. Before you get upset, I never told her about my situation. Like I said, it was embarrassing. The last thing I wanted to do was ask for help because my mother couldn’t be a responsible adult. I only reached out when I did because I couldn’t figure out what to do. I didn’t have Mom, money for my own place, or friends I could ask to crash with.”

Blowing out a harsh breath, I scrub my face with my hands and try to ignore the burning in my chest. “Why didn’t she tell me that you two talked?”

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