Page 76 of Play Nice

“The book. You could have told me, and you didn’t. You lied to me.”

“I didn’t lie. I omitted.”

“You lied.”

“Dad burned my book. Why isn’t that the topic of this conversation? Why is it my fault?”

“That’s…he shouldn’t have done that. But you can’t blame him for being upset.”

“I can, actually.”

“You crossed a boundary. You broke a promise. You lied,” she says. “To all of us.”

“What do I owe you?” I ask, looking out at the city. I’m more exasperated than angry. Disappointed that she’s not more understanding. I expected empathy from her, and it stings that I’m not getting any. “I made that promise when I was a kid. When my classmates still believed in Santa Claus.”

“Okay. Still,” she says. “You should have come to us when you found the book. When you started to read it.”

“I don’t need your approval for everything I do.”

She clicks her tongue. “Yeah, you’ve made that clear. But then you need to live with the consequences. Take responsibility for your actions.”

“You sound like Leda.”

“You’re too hard on her. On both of us,” she says. “And on Dad.”

“What if I’m not hard enough?” I ask. The weed isn’t calming me down. It’s just making me more anxious. I turn my gaze down to the street below. What’s that thing, when you feel the urge to jump off a building? Isn’t there a name for that impulse? I don’t want to die. I just want to know how it feels to fall. “What if Dad isn’t who we think he is? What if he’s everything Mom said he was? He cheated on her with Amy and lied about it.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Wow. Whatever,” I say.

She takes a deep breath. “You need to apologize.”

“Apologize to whom? Captain Beatty?”

“Yes. And Leda. And Amy. Everyone’s really upset.”

“I’m upset,” I say, my voice breaking. “I’m really, really fucking upset.”

I close my eyes, and where there should be darkness, I see the scrapes in the wall. The frowning face.

“Please, Clio,” Daphne says. “Listen to me. Alexandra being gone…it makes things confusing. Emotionally. But she hurt us. Don’t you remember how she would scream at us? Chase us around the house. She kept us locked out on the deck during a fucking exorcism. She showed up belligerent, drunk out of her mind to our dance recital, embarrassed the hell out of us before crashing her car in the parking lot. I know we never talk about it, but I think about it. I think about how she couldn’t see us if she didn’t get sober, if she didn’t stop ranting about demons, but she refused to do that. We weren’t worth it to her, Cli. She wasn’t well. She was abusive. What she did to us, it was abuse.”

“Are those your words?” I ask, shaking my head, backing away from the ledge. “Or Dad’s?”

“Stop. You don’t get to question my memories. My experience. It’s not fair. It’s not all about you, Clio.”

“It is about me. The whole family revolves around me. I’m the sun. That’s why you need me. You need me to apologize and make peace so you can all go back to pretending we’re normal and happy and that everything’s fine and has always been fine. And I’m done pretending.”

I hang up and immediately call Veronica.

“Hey, hey,” she says. “What’s up, babe?”

“Do you want to go out tonight?”

“You know it.”

“Can we smoke up here?” A voice from behind me. It’s my upstairs neighbor. 6B. He’s got a buzz cut and baby face and no job, enabler parents who pay his rent. He stares at me open-mouthed whenever I walk by. Something about him reminds me of Daphne’s old pet gerbil. Maybe in that he’s very cute but seemingly incapable of making conversation.