AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I blinked at her. “Oh.” I thought this was going to be our conversation now. That we’d move past what we just saw. I wouldn’t have minded it, but that wasn’t the case.
“I owe you an apology, Sash,” Riley blurted. She took my hand in hers and squeezed it for several seconds before turning her eyes to me. “I was never there for you. Back when it all happened. I wasn’t there for you the way I should have been.”
“Riley – ”
“No, trust me. I knew it at the time. But I couldn’t seem to stop myself from going out instead of being there for you, or sounding impatient when you tried to talk about it. I just didn’t know how to talk to you. I didn’t feel like I knew how to make it any better, and I was annoyed that this was our life now. We were so normal before he came along. Better than normal. We were like three sisters, you, me and Mom. And then it turned to shit, and a part of me blamed you, and that is so fucking wrong.”
I squeezed her hand. “You were seventeen. What seventeen-year-old knows how to handle that situation?”
“What fifteen-year-old does?” Riley countered. “I don’t know how you survived without me or Mom letting you talk about it. Ever. I don’t know how you made it out when we treated you like that.”
“I found my ways.” With Liam. And only Liam. “And I’m okay now. But hearing you acknowledge it helps. More than I even imagined it would,” I said, ignoring my tears to wipe hers. “Really.”
“Good.” Riley nodded. She looked at me. “I don’t agree with most of the things she does, you know. Mom. Just because I’m supposed to be like her mini-me doesn’t mean I agree with her. I just nod along because that’s my job, and that’s just what’s easy.”
“I know.” We were quiet for another second. I looked down at our empty laps. I attempted a laugh, but it didn’t quite come out. “So, what are we going to tell her? About why we came home without the wine?”
“Say her boyfriend will fucking get it to her, since she clearly invited him up here.” Riley shook her head as she stared out the windshield. “It’s not the first time she’s done that, you know.”
“Done what?”
“Tried to see Owen after leaving him. Made excuses for him. Once he spouted enough bullshit about you… about how you started it… she was right back to wanting to be with him. We were back in New York by then, but she bought a train ticket and everything so he could come by. I overheard her and I screamed at her and fought with her for three hours until she canceled their date.”
I stared at Riley, having been clueless to that fact. So she had defended me in some way. Just not to my face. Riley squeezed my hand tighter than ever.
“Mom is Mom, but you’re my sister, Sasha. Everything we go through, we go through together, whether we like it or not.”
I nodded.
We sat another wordless twenty minutes before I drove us back to the house. To my relief, it was empty. I figured everyone was running some kind of errand. I didn’t object. I needed the time to think. Riley and I couldn’t figure out if we’d stay, or if we’d tell Mom that we saw her dirty secret at the liquor store. But as it turned out, the answers seemed to be yes and no. Neither of us had the energy to drive home, and when Mom came back, neither of us spoke a word to her. I didn’t know how I felt about staying or sitting through a huge family dinner with her, but I was too tired to think about it.
Before Liam even got home, I fell asleep with Riley in her bed.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Downstairs, I could hear the distinct sounds of my relatives streaming into the house. More specifically, I could hear my Aunt Karen and her famous belly laugh as she harassed Riley about something o
r another. It was a delightful, ridiculous sound, and generally contagious to even the likes of Vic, but as I knelt on the floor of my bedroom, I couldn’t bring myself to smile.
I had just told Liam everything I had promised to yesterday.
I told him about the first time Ethan came to the bar. I told him everything Ethan did, and every word he said. I told him about the fact that I’d lied by omission. I never revealed the existence of Owen’s letters. For starters, they had only begun coming to me when I was living with Ethan, and by that time, I revealed far less about my life to Liam. But even if I had, I feared Liam would force me to use them to confront my mother, and I wasn’t ready for that then. I was still praying for a miracle then.
With just those confessions, a dark cloud fell over Liam. He was dressed and ready for dinner in a crisp button-down, belted and neatly tucked in, but he sat at the edge of my bed, unmoving. He leaned with his elbows on his knees like a statue made from stone. His glinting eyes were the only sign of life, and I knew he was seething, but I forced myself to go on.
I told him about the day I went to see Ethan – how I’d gone alone to his apartment to try and retrieve the letters in my old nightstand. I told him that he’d adopted the dog I had wished for, and that I could have my letters if I’d go back to him. And finally, I told him about last night with Riley at the liquor store – every detail down to Mom’s bottle of wine in Owen’s hand. It was forever silent after that, but I could almost hear the adrenaline running through Liam’s veins. I felt as if I could actually see his blood rushing under his skin, pumping fire through his muscled limbs. Downstairs, I could hear laughter and teasing and wine bottles uncorking, but in up in my room, I felt as if we might be at the very edge of disaster, because never in my life had I seen Liam so angry.
“Please say something,” I begged quietly. Individually, my confessions were infuriating. Together, revealed in one breath, I feared they could threaten someone’s life. Owen’s, Ethan’s – maybe even Liam’s. “You have to be calm,” I breathed.
“I can’t.” His reply came straightaway and I fell to my knees in front of him.
“You promised me, Liam.”
“I could’ve killed him then. I could still kill him now.”
“But you won’t, Liam, because it’s over. I faced him, I said what I needed to say, and after tonight, I’m done. I’m done trying to impress my mother or make her love me. I don’t care.”
Liam’s eyes bore into me. I could see the conflict behind them. He wanted to be relieved and overjoyed by my statement, but there was too much that still plagued him. “If you’re done, why are we even staying tonight?”
