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I frown. It’s very unlike Celine to do anything new so quickly. She makes life changes the same way she gets into a swimming pool: one tippy toe at a time.
“What do you know about him?” I ask.
“Next to nothing.” Mom sighs. “But he seems very impressive. He inherited his father’s business and now, he runs it on his own. Has a really nice house in The Valley, too.”
I don’t know what I’m more annoyed by: the fact that he’s clearly a trust fund kid or that Mom knows a lot more about him than I do.
“Celine hasn’t really told me anything about him, either.”
“Oh.” I’ve never heard an ‘oh’ said with so much weight behind it. Of course, Mom being Mom, she jumps right into Diplomat Mode. “I’m sure she just wants to keep things private for a little while. You know her.”
I sigh. “Yeah. I’m just saying—”
“I’m sure it has nothing to do with Alec.”
Oof.Those words land like a punch to the gut. I close my eyes for a moment, thinking about how simple things were back then. Back when Mom was healthy and Dad wasn’t so scared. Back when summers were long and worries were short-lived and no blue-eyed demons came barreling through my neighborhood when I was crossing the road.
My phone starts beeping, alerting me to an incoming call. “Mom, can I call you right back?”
“Better yet, why don’t you come over this evening?”
“Oh, Mom, I—”
“Please, Taylor,” she says. “Your father misses you. I do, too.”
“Okay,” I sigh. “I’ll come by later. Bye, Mom. Love you.”
I end the call with her and accept Celine’s. The pregnancy test is still lurking on the counter like a grenade with the pin missing, but I choose to put that off a little longer. Give it time to change its mind, y’know?
“Hi, Cee. Sorry I missed your call.”
“It’s okay. Just wanted to share some news.”
I hear the verbal equivalent of her itchy-butt face. An anxious, lip-chewing excitement. “Something you’d like to tell me, sister dearest?”
She draws in a deep breath before launching into it. “Okay, here goes: I know this is going to come as a huge shock, but I want you to know that I’ve thought this through.”
“I’m not sure I like the way this is starting…”
“You know what a cautious person I am. You know I never do anything without thinking it through first.”
“Of course. I’ve always said you’re well on your way to becoming Dad. Why do anything when you can just worry about how it will go wrong instead?”
She fakes a sarcastic laugh. “Ha. Ha. Do you want to hear my news or not?”
“Yes, sorry. Proceed.”
Another deep breath. This one makes me catch my own.
Suddenly, I’m less concerned with the pregnancy test than I am with whatever Celine is about to tell me. I get the same sense I got the night the man almost ran me down outside of the park: a feeling of something huge and violent and unavoidable hurtling in my direction. A feeling that everything is about to change forever, and the person I was before this moment is not the same as the person I will be after.
“I’m…engaged.”
I blink. “What?”
“Like I said, I know it’s fast—”
“Fast?” I gasp. “Fast?!Celine, how long have you even been with this guy?”
