Page 161 of Slapshot Baby

"Why?"

"Because he hurt you. Because you were on the floor sobbing and he's the reason."

"You had no right."

"I had every right. I'm your sister."

"That doesn't mean you get to decide who I talk to."

"Somebody has to make that decision because you won't."

The words land like a slap. My throat burns.

“Don’t tell me that, Lu.”

Lucy stands. She has my build and my face. But where I curve, she angles. Where I soften, she sharpens. Looking at her is like looking into a mirror that shows who I'd be if I replaced every feeling with logic.

"You were broken on your bathroom floor for a man who hung up on you while you're carrying his baby. And I'm supposed to just let him call back and sweet-talk his way in?"

She steps forward, arms folded across her ribs, shoulders squared.

"I watched Mom melt herself down for eighteen years over a man who showed up when it was easy and vanished when it cost him something. I sat at that kitchen table while she waited by the phone. I watched her put on lipstick before he walked in the door like she had to earn the right to exist in her own house."

Her voice rises. "And now I'm watching you do the exact same thing with a different man and you want me to sit here and let it happen?"

"Kai is not Dad."

"Every woman in love says that about the man she's currently excusing."

"He's not."

“He hung up on you while you’re pregnant, sick, and struggling. What part of that is different from what Dad did?”

My chest tightens.

“That’s not exactly what happened.”

Lucy’s eyes narrow. “What does that mean?”

I look down at my hands.

“I never told him.”

A beat of silence.

“Told him what?”

“That I was pregnant.”

Her face goes completely still. “Ava.”

“I was going to. Then he lost his memory, and every time I tried, there was another reason to wait. I kept telling myself I’d do it when he was stronger. When he remembered more. When the timing wasn’t so terrible. Then things between us got complicated and— ”

“And now?”

“I still haven’t told him.”

Lucy is quiet for a long moment. “What are you gonna do?”