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I didn’t realize till that moment that I still believed she could do it again. Disappear. She’d spent most of her life by my side before leaving the first time. I wasn’t exactly sold on the fact that the past two weeks with me would keep her from doing it again, and it was making it harder and harder to enjoy the way my mother gushed and sighed and laughed the way she hadn’t for so long. She went on and on about the reservations she’d booked at spas, shops, restaurants from Manhattan to Hudson Valley. All for Lake. I tried not to let my mind dip into my negative thoughts but I caved. I imagined how hard my mother would crash from this high if Lake ran off again. I had no doubt that a second time would officially break her. Imagining it shot my mood straight to Hell.
Leaning in my chair, the distrust for Lake crawled back like a disease. I touched my hand to my mouth, nodding, thoughtful and reactive to every giddy thing my mother said but under the table, my drumming fingers moved faster as my fury rose again. Lake had promised not to leave again but there was little guarantee in words. I wasn’t going to blindly believe her and for that reason, I couldn’t bring myself to enjoy my mother’s smile, which I found a little fucking depressing.
There goes that. The last week with Lake had been phenomenal and the morning capped it off. I’d felt a strange ease with her, moving around the kitchen, having breakfast, talking about our plans for the day. I’d enjoyed the hell out of the simple pleasure of it all but it was only one step forward and with the realization that I still doubted her, I’d just taken two back.
I ran the water scalding hot when I got back to the apartment. Lake was going to be home soon and as tempting as it was to unload on her my every dark thought and suspicion, I knew to instead find a way to calm myself down. Nothing productive would come out of my accusations. It was my distrust versus her insistence and that was a pointless conversation so I tried to just wash away my anger before she returned. I didn’t want to lash out the second she walked in. I knew it probably wouldn’t be fair. So I breathed in the thick steam and reminded myself that Lake had loved my mother, too, with all her heart and as much as I did.
As I ducked my head under the raining water, I heard the whisper of her seventeen-year-old voice.
“We should cancel the beach trip, Callum.”
I remembered her climbing into my bed that one night. She did it often but I was particularly annoyed that time because I’d actually fallen asleep.
“Get out of my bed.”
“Did you hear me? We should stay home this weekend.”
“Stop. Talking to me. Go to sleep.” I tossed away from her. She ignored me and climbed under my sheets. “In your own bed.”
“I can’t sleep, she’s crying.”
“She’s always crying. Take her Ambien.”
Lake was quiet for a second and that made me hopeful that she was going to leave me alone. I had wrestling practice before school and after and I’d gotten about eight combined hours of sleep all week thanks to all the late-night sobbing. But Lake only cuddled her body into my back. “Can I tell you my dream from this morning?”
“Are you fucking kidding me, Lake?”
She fell away from me, quiet again. I could feel her about to go back to her room but at the last second, she changed her mind and said it all in one breath. “I dreamt I woke up and there was this really cute baby girl at the foot of my bed and she had this perfect pink crib with little bows tied to it, and it felt so real ‘cause in the dream I knew her name was Ella and when I went to hold her, she was – ”
“Fuck. Off. Lake.” It was harsh. I knew that. But now she was touching on a nerve and about to make it impossible for me to fall back asleep. At this point, we’d figured out that my mother had been bugging my dad for another baby. Through adoption, unless some miracle happened. I’d overheard her on the phone with my aunt, saying she didn’t get enough time to be a mommy to a little girl. She’d gotten the briefest taste of it with Lake and that only made things worse because now Lake was seventeen with a boyfriend and bound for college in less than a year. My dad was rarely home but I knew he was irritated by her desperate pleading. On the rare occasions that he got drunk at home, he muttered about how my mother took a teenaged girl in without giving him a choice to say no. As much as his eyes flew to Lake the second she walked into a room – as much as he couldn’t help staring at her with the most thinly veiled lust, he resented her. He was bitter for being put in a situation where he had to father this beautiful stranger and he was bitter at the amount of attention she sucked from my mother. He saw Lake as the reason his wife was suddenly begging him for a child when he’d already agreed to have me eighteen years ago and then basically adopt another – wasn’t that fucking enough?
He was rarely ever home but Lake’s increasing sex appeal and my mother’s baby fever kept him more often away from the house. There wasn’t a whole lot I could do about the situation and I knew Lake would feel insanely guilty if she ever found out, so any mention of the baby thing from her had me bottling my thoughts and stewing in silent irritation.
“I’ll leave you alone if you promise to stay home with me this weekend. We can wake up early and make her breakfast and take her to see that fashion exhibit at The Met. And then at night we’ll just chill and make dinner and watch like, Ghost or Dirty Dancing.”
“Do you want to chop my balls off while we’re at it.”
She pulled me onto my back and held my face, giggling into it and waking me officially up. “We’re staying in with her this weekend,” she said an inch from my lips. “Tell me you’ll do it, Callum.”
I tried to ignore her but then I let out a breath. “I’ll do it.”
“Thank you.” She kissed my forehead and my anger dissipated too easily for my liking. “Can I sleep here tonight?”
I stared blankly at the ceiling as she climbed onto me. “Yeah.” I slid my fingers through her hair and stroked the way I knew she liked. To my irritation, she was out like a light in a minute. And I stayed wide-awake because that was just how it went – Lake woke me up when she heard my mother crying, I’d say something to eventually ease her heart and then she’d conk out while I spent the rest of the night sleepless and annoyed. I knew I was doomed to this fate every time her sharp whisper stirred me from slumber – a night of memorizing every inch of the ceiling and counting her soft breaths till I saw the sun rise. She was damned lucky I loved feeling her asleep on my chest.
Chapter Twelve
Lake
I realized I wanted to go home before the conversation even started. Maybe because Theo had made it weird the second we got into the café. He held the door open for me and after I walked through, put a hand on the small of my back and flashed me a big smile.
“Let’s rewind this whole thing and start over,” he suggested with that big, gallant prince laugh he always thought sounded so charming. “Lake. It’s so good to see you again. And I have to say, you look incredible.” With that, he did his version of the Spencer family kiss on the cheek. His parents had always been big on greeting their guests with it, so Theo and his brothers adopted that way of saying hello. Of course, they only insisted with girls and Theo, every time, loved to press his kiss closer to the mouth than the cheek. That hadn’t changed. Despite the fact that we once dated, I flinched when I felt his lips on me. He noticed, looked annoyed and muttered “sorry” as the awkward air started floating in.
He and I had been together on and off from junior to senior year. We broke up whenever he got too pissed that I wouldn’t have sex with him and our group of friends, knowing it would be temporary, would begrudgingly split with us every time. Everyone still spoke and got along, aside from Theo and myself, but our lunch tables would separate – Callum, Isabel and Logan always sat with me – and we’d have to carefully arrange our plans so Theo and I didn’t both show up. I was generally the one to bow out. Caroline always got pissed at Callum for not boycotting social outings with me, so whenever there was a party I was skipping for breakup reasons, she’d make pumpkin shakes and homemade whipped cream and we’d sit at home watching chick flicks till we fell asleep on the couch.
“I just don’t get what your hang-up is,” Theo said one day while we hung out in his bedroom. We were on our longest streak without a breakup – a whopping four months. “It’s gonna hurt the first time for every girl. And then you get used to it and it’s fine.”
“That’s not the issue, Theo.”
