My dad wasn’t there, of course not; it was Shelly.
She was dressed in a skimpy silk nightie and robe that she had to be freezing in. She walked to the coffeepot with her phone pressed to her ear, oblivious to my open door.
“—but I waited for you last night,” she said, her voice equal parts hope and hurt. “You said you’d wake me up when you got home.” She shivered and tugged the flimsy silk robe tighter around herself as she filled the carafe with water. “No, I know, I know, but—” She stopped talking as I imagined he cut her off. She had time to measure the coffee grounds before he let her talk again. “I thought that since it was our anniversary you might—”
I should have quietly closed my door and tiptoed back to my bed, pretend I’d never heard my dad feeding excuses to Shelly for why he apparently hadn’t come home for their anniversary. It was bad enough that I’d had to watch her hunch into herself as he likely berated her for trying to make him feel bad for doing his damn job!
Growing up, I’d overheard him and Mom having that same fight more times than I could count.
You were the one who wanted the big house!
Because you’re never here! I needed something to make me feel less alone.
Right, because I’m not just responsible for putting this ridiculous roof over your head. I’m responsible for how you feel living under it! Well then, cheers to you, Helen. I hope it finally makes you happy.
Keep your voice down or you’ll wake Jolene.
That’s rich. She’s just another thing you said you needed until you actually got it. Buyer’s remorse doesn’t work so well with a kid, does it?
One or both of them would leave after that. When I was really little, there’d be another argument over who had to stay in the house with me. Mom usually lost, and I’d have to pretend to be asleep while she stood in my bedroom doorway muttering things that no kid should ever hear their mother say.
Watching Shelly, I couldn’t remember if the fights between my parents had ever started as timidly as the one I saw in that kitchen. Not that Shelly and my dad were technically fighting. She wasn’t raising her voice and seemed to be conceding every point to him. It was kind of pathetic, or that was what I tried to tell myself so I wouldn’t feel every quiver of her chin.
Shelly’s hands were shaking when she lowered her phone. She stood there, staring at the coffee maker for a long moment, before one still-shaking hand poured a cup.
“I’m sure that was fun for you,” she said without turning. “Poetic justice, right? He probably missed anniversaries with your mom because he was with me, and here I am freezing in this ridiculous—” she plucked at the hem that barely covered her butt “—thing that he never even saw.”
Then she laughed, and all the hairs on my arms rose. “Everyone said I was an idiot. Literally, I didn’t have a single friend who told me it was okay, no matter how much I swore we were in love.”
Cherry’s face sprang up in my mind for the first time since my birthday, and along with it came all the fights we’d had over her being with Meneik. She and Shelly weren’t the same, but their situations might have started out much more similarly than I’d ever considered. As hurt and angry as I still was, I felt hollow when I imagined a future for Cherry that even slightly resembled Shelly’s present.
I shook the thought away when Shelly turned, her coffee forgotten, showing me her tearstained face. “My mother refused to meet him. Did you know that? Wouldn’t let me bring him to her house. She said my father would be rolling in his grave if he could see what I’d done.”
“Why don’t you leave him?”
She started to smile, but it turned the other way. “I gave up everything for him. I lost my job, my family, and my friends. I destroyed your life, and even though I still think your mother is the queen bitch of the universe, I helped make her that way.”
“No,” I said. “You didn’t.” I don’t know why I did it—or rather, I did, but I didn’t want to think about the why. “Maybe you gave her another excuse not to hide it, but my mother has been...what she is for my entire life.”
Shelly’s perfect little mouth gaped at me. “Did you—you didn’t—”
“You’re not the reason my mother’s a miserable shrew. My dad’s not the reason.” I thought about what Adam had said to me, and I looked down when I felt my eyes prick. “I’m not the reason either.”
Somehow it all came pouring out of me, everything from those overheard fights when I was little to Mom firing Mrs. Cho because I’d made the mistake of telling her that our housekeeper loved me enough to make me a birthday cake. On and on I went, until I looked up and saw that Shelly was crying so hard that she couldn’t lift her hands to cover her face.
I had to get out of the apartment after that. I dashed into the hall, shutting the door and Shelly behind me and...then I stopped.
Normally, I’d have gone to Adam—or, more normally, I wouldn’t have had to go to him, because we’d have already been together. But he was inside his apartment with his dad and brother, and I wanted that for him, I really did. They could come out at any moment, maybe on their way to breakfast, or to go play ice hockey together, or anything, and the last thing I wanted—apart from having to go back into my dad’s apartment and face Shelly—was risk being outside Adam’s door, like the most pathetic person who had ever lived, when they came out.
So I knocked on Guy’s instead.
He opened the door mid-yawn, but it spread into a slow smile as his gaze traveled over me. “Well, if it isn’t my little early bird. Where’s your Adam this morning?”
“He’s spending time with his dad and brother.” I tugged on my braid and tried not to look at the door behind me, the one that could conceivably open at any moment. “I thought maybe we could watch a movie.”
Guy leaned against his doorframe. “Sure you wouldn’t rather wait out here in case he changes his mind and wants to be with you?”
I felt like squirming, and I was pretty sure he knew I felt like squirming.
“’Cause, you know, playing second fiddle to a sixteen-year-old kid—not really how I like to live my life.”
“You’re not,” I said, tugging on my braid so hard that my scalp started to hurt. “I’m the one who told him to hang out with them.”
He slowly crossed his arms. “So you could hang out with me?”
Any second, any second, Adam could come out. I didn’t have time to let Guy amuse himself by jerking me around. “You know what, forget it.” I turned to walk away, but Guy darted out and caught my arm, and the pressure made me yelp.