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“No idea,” I answered with a shrug too casual to not be suspicious.
“You haven't talked to him?”
I took a bite of the sandwich, then shook my head. “No. We got into a fight last night.”
“Yeah, Mom told me,” he said, nodding. There was concern in his voice. “You guys okay?”
I glanced at my tattletale mother, now looking up at me expectantly from her phone.
“Um,” I began, knowing the truth would come out eventually. Now was as good a moment as any even if I had been hoping for a little more time to enjoy their ignorance. “No, not really. I, uh, I think we broke up last night.”
Dad's jaw dropped before he uttered a disbelieving, “What? What the hell did he do?” As if it were assumed to be Peter's fault. As if it were impossible for the problem to be completely and entirely me.
Mom sighed mournfully. Her disappointment was clear and evident, and I settled deeper into my guilt. “Oh no, Lenny. What happened?”
“Well, um …”
With my lip trapped between my teeth, I dropped the sandwich to the paper plate, no longer hungry when my belly was filled to the brim with nauseating shame.
What the hell was I supposed to say? Lying wasn't an option, but telling them I had made a mistake seemed like one. Cheating on Peter was wrong; of course it shouldn't have happened. But I would never look at any experience with Dylan as a mistake. Icouldn'teven if it meant denying what was right.
So, instead, I chose to be blunt. “I kissed Dylan.”
The oxygen was sucked from the room and replaced with the weight of my parents' combined shock and undeniable disappointment.
I was always the good kid. My brother was their troublemaker, and Tarryn was the friend they worried would corrupt my innocence. But I was inherently safe, always doing the right thing—thedecentthing. I wasn't the one to lie or steal or turn my back on someone.
Yet I was the one who’d betrayed her boyfriend. My nice, sweet boyfriend, the one my parents loved and wished to be their son-in-law. It was my fault it would never be, and with my gaze on the flattened sandwich, I could feel the scorn in their eyes without seeing it.
“Jesus Christ, Lennon,” Dad scolded, shaking his head. “Why the hell would you do that?”
Hot, angry tears bit at my eyes as I stupidly replied, “Because …”
The word hung in the air as I tried to scramble through my broken thoughts.
Because … he sang to me.
Because … he satisfies me in ways Peter can't.
Because … I don't love Peter.
Because … I lovehim.
Whether true or not, none of the reasons I found could lie against my tongue without making me gag. I didn't want to say it aloud, not to them, so I said nothing.
“Because?” Dad was flabbergasted.
“I don't know what you want me to say,” I replied quietly, slumping my shoulders. Feeling like a little girl who was about to be sent to her room without dessert.
He uttered a noise of disgust as he pushed away from the table, his chair scraping against the tiled floor, then stood. I watched helplessly as he trudged his way to the back door, ready to leave and get away from the cheater sitting at the table.
But before he could go, he turned to me and said, “Lennon, you're not a child—I know that. You're an adult, and you make your own choices, but this isn't you. Iknowyou, and I'm telling you right now, this isn't it. If this is what that guy turns you into, I don't like it.”
He hesitated for a few beats of my thundering heart, his rage and dissatisfaction resounding with every heated breath. I could only imagine what else there was to say. Did he think I was a fucking slut too? I never in a thousand years would expect to hear my father utter those words to me, his favorite and only daughter. But if I could find it in me to forget about my boyfriend long enough to kiss another man, then I guessed it was possible for my father to think such a vile, horrific thing about me … and say it.
But he didn't.
With a final rueful huff of air, he spun on his heel and left the house, closing the door loudly behind him, leaving my mother and me to sit in heavy, sticky silence at the table.
