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Ihugged my closed laptop to my chest, which trapped my racing heart inside. In a matter of minutes, Rachel would walk into my room, and then it was time. Coming clean was terrifying, but I couldn’t avoid it anymore. All I could hope for was a lesser sentence in the court of Rachel Manning.
My bedroom door was open, and I could hear the soft hum of the showerhead pump out water. I also heard when, in an anxiety-inducing second, the water shut off.
I’d gone back and forth an insane amount of times whether or not to tell Reed what I was about to do. Most of this did involve him. I even got as far as pulling out my cell, drafting the text, and then…throwing my phone onto my duvet. What did I expect from him, anyway? To show up and help me tell the tale?
Yeah, Rachel, it all happened when I went downstairs to get a drink of water. Your brother walked in shirtless, and we just decided to kiss.
And what would Reed say?Yeah, we did.
No, better to face this on my own. It was my mess—it was my job to clean it up. Rachel shouldn’t be mad at Reed for any of this. It was all on me.
“Your showerhead isdivine,” Rachel called in a singsong voice as she opened up the bathroom door, and even from where I lounged on my bed, I could see the steam billow out. “Like, seriously. I remember it being much worse.”
“You can thank your brother for that,” I called back, stretching my legs out on the mattress. My pajama bottoms had little coffee mugs on them, and I traced the outlines. “He was my mom’s little construction worker for the past few weeks.”
“Yeah, he said something about that.” Rachel walked into my bedroom with her own silky pajamas on, rubbing at her brown hair with one of our towels. Instead of sitting on the bed beside me, she went to where her overnight bag was by the window, sifting through it until she pulled out a hairbrush. “Which makes me want to pummel him even more. He’s over here, helping your mom get ready to sell.”
“She was going to do it regardless. Without or without his help.”
“Without his help would’ve taken longer.”
I thought of the bills and the shutoff notices, knowing she didn’t have time to take too long.
Rachel combed through her hair, peering out the window as she did so. Wetness was already starting to gather on the silk of her top, darkening the blue. I could see her somewhat in the reflection of the window, a pale face against the dark. “What do you have your laptop for?”
I hugged it tighter, like she was going to rip it from my fingertips. “It has to do with…coming clean.”
While Rachel was showering, I’d gone ahead and loaded up the newly redesigned Manning Construction website. It would be the first page that it opened up to. Kicking it off with a bang. But after debating and debating, working with her dad seemed like the lesser of the two evils I needed to confess about.
She turned around to face me, wielding her hairbrush. “I’m sorry,” she said.
I blinked. “Sorry?”
“For last night.” Her gaze drifted to the side. “You’re right. I shouldn’t have been comparing my experience to yours. Our parents splitting up isn’t a trophy that only one of us can win.”
I hadn’t expected my eyes to sting so early on into our conversation, but here I was, fixing on the lamp near my bed in hopes of drying them up. “I know it probably brought up hard stuff for you.”
“It did.” Rachel padded slowly across the floor, sitting on the opposite edge of the bed than me. She continued to brush her hair, using it as a lulling motion. “But you were there for me when I went through it. I should’ve been there for you. I just—” She let out a harsh breath. “I was jealous.”
“Jealous?” I echoed. “What was there to be jealous of?”
“Your dad walked out, but it wasn’t like you were cut off from him the way I was cut off from mine. It wasn’t like—it wasn’t like you weren’t allowed to miss him.”
I tried to duck my head to catch her eye, but she turned away. “Did you miss your dad?”
“Every day. I could never show it, though. It was obvious Reed and Mom were angry—which, I mean, I get that they were—so it felt like I had to be angry, too. Which…it was easier to be angry than to miss him. Like, it wasn’twrongto be angry, but it was wrong to want to talk to him.” She gave a sharp shrug, forcing out a chuckle as if to brush everything off. “So, I guess that’s why I was jealous, that you could talk to your dad and it wasn’t that big of a deal.”
It suddenly felt too exhausting to sit upright, so I nestled against my array of pillows, curling my legs to my chest. I set the laptop off to the side. “I’ve only seen him once since he left, and it was only for ten minutes.”
It turned out that the weight I started with ended up being the one I carried the longest. As I told her about my father, and how things had devolved into a text message every few days, I could practically physically feel the tension easing off my chest, especially when she reached over and picked up my hand. Tears were shed on both sides of the bed, but when I finally talked about the divorce, I could tell she was actually listening. Not comparing. Not judging. Just being there for me.
“You should’ve told me,” she said with a sniffle, patting her tears off her cheeks. “You must’ve felt so alone.”
In my head, I could picture Reed lying in his bed, my body tucked up against his. The steady pulls of his breathing echoed in my ears, along with his voice.I’ll always be there for you.As whatever you want me to be. “I had someone I could talk to.”
I expected her to dig more on that since I’d left the door wide open, but she didn’t. Instead, she almost looked fearful, setting the hairbrush down. “There’s something else. One other thing that I’ve been keeping from you.”
Her words caused anxiety to shift through me. She only had one thing left, but I had two major things. The playing field felt totally unfair. “Go ahead.”
