Page 36 of The Moment I Knew

I set my glass down anyway, deliberately half on, half off the coaster. She noticed. I saw it in the way her eyes flicked down and back up. I finished eating and leaned back, folding my arms. My appetite was gone, replaced by that familiar, buzzing anger.

I told myself she wouldn’t always be here. I could survive her until she wasn’t—because I wasn’t letting go of my plan for my parents to get back together. And Hilary didn’t fit anywhere into that picture.

Two hours later, we were all on the couch. Dad was sitting on the far end of the couch, with Hilary cuddled up into his side, with a blanket covering both their legs. I sat on the opposite end of the couch with my phone face-down in my lap since Hilary commented about how teens have no attention spans anymore every time I pick it up to do anything. She acted like she was middle-aged instead of in her mid-twenties, and I wondered if she was constantly trying to prove to my dad how mature she was.

She was just in the middle of a lecture about why it’s important that I drink more water when my phone buzzed. I flipped it over, my stomach dropping when I saw the name.

“I’m gonna take this,” I said, already getting up from the couch.

“Everything okay?” my dad asked.

“Yeah,” I said. “I’ll be right back.”

I stepped into the hallway, pulling the door most of the way shut behind me—not all the way, because it never felt like I was allowed to—one of Hilary’s lovely rules.

I leaned against the wall, lowering my voice automatically. “Hello?”

“Wow, you actually picked up,” Mitch said, but his tone was more mocking than surprised.

“Don’t take it as a compliment, I was just bored out of my mind.” I studied my nails, picking at small remnants of the orange polish from Sunday. “Are you calling about the little scene in the coffee shop earlier?”

“I just need you to know that I would have fought that guy if you wanted me to,” Mitch said. Even though I couldn’t see him, I could imagine him puffing up his chest. Easy to be brave when Cole wasn’t standing in front of him anymore.

“Uh huh.”

“And the only reason I didn’t was because I didn’t want him to get in trouble at his job. Like, I’m sure he needs the money. So really it was noble of me.”

“Yeah,” I said, the word coming out more as a sigh than anything. “It really was.”

He didn’t pick up on the sarcasm. “So you agree then—we should go out.”

I snorted. “Nice try.”

“Come on, Imogen!” His tone came close to a whine, which would have immediately convinced me to turn him down if I’d been at all interested in the first place. “What’s it going to take for you to say yes?”

“Hmm…” I pretend to give it some thought. “Hell freezing over would probably be a prerequisite.”

“If there’s some other guy⁠—”

“There’s not another guy,” I interrupted, not wanting to hear his jealousy spiral. “I’m just not interested. Take a hint.”

I hung up before he could respond. A little rude, sure, but he would get over it. Or he wouldn’t and he’d stop asking me out. Either way it was a win.

I stuffed my phone back in my pocket and stood there for a moment, debating what I wanted to do now. The whole point of coming over here was to spend time with Dad, but Hilary had been getting in the way of that all evening. Did I really feel like sitting out there watching her shows while Dad and I didn’t even get a chance to speak? But then again, it was a little early to say I was going to bed and that could open up a whole other can of worms.

At least Dad said we could spend tomorrow together. I was going to hold out hope that he meant without Hilary, like how we’d gone out just the two of us on Saturday. She’d been slowly encroaching further and further on our time together, like she thought I was visiting her as well as him, but she couldn’t take everything.

I took a deep breath and with one longing look at the bed, walked back out into the living room. Dad and Hilary were sitting exactly as they were before, but looked like they were having a conversation in low tones despite the show still playing on the TV. I paused partway down the hall, wondering if I could go back into my room and fake being on the phone for a while longer instead of being in the middle of this, but then Hilary spotted me. She immediately sat up straight, her eyes brightening.

“So who was that?” she asked giddily. It was the reaction I might have expected from one of my school friends, but it felt just bizarre coming from her.

I shrugged. “Just someone from school.”

My dad glanced over. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah,” I said again. “It was nothing.”

Hilary tilted her head. “Nothing-nothing, or boy-nothing?”