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Delilah pulls her hand out of my hair and places it in her lap. “Confusion abouteverything. I think that for a while, my father assumed my mom had an affair and that they never had kids because he was impotent, but that was a lot for an eight-year-old to speculate about,” she says.
“After that, the confusion was all about how they could frame it positively for me. They had created my whole entire identity around being their ‘real child’, and my mom had formed a self-righteous streak at the idea of being an adoptive mother. When she got pregnant with her own baby, it was impossible for her to hide that she loved it more than she loved me.”
“Did you feel jealous?” I ask.
“Not at first. I didn’t really understand why it would be something to be jealous over. It wasn’t until after my parents had repeatedtalkswith me about jealousy that it started to bother me,” she says, and I can hear her tone change slightly, taking on a bitter affect.
“What do you mean by that? Did they put ideas in your head?” I ask.
“Yeah, essentially. I think they kept sitting me down and talking to me to make themselves feel better, but it ended up making me second guess everything after that. They’d always talk about how theystilllove me, how I’mstilltheir child, when I hadn’t even questioned those things in the first place. They gave me a reason to doubt them,” she replies.
Brutal. People often reveal themselves through their constant urge to deny their true feelings, and her parents sound like they couldn’t help but reveal their guilt in the same way. It must’ve been rough for her.
“How did you feel about your sister growing up?” I ask, sensing that I already know the answer based on context alone.
She laughs bitterly. “Oh, things were fine at first, but as I got older, we stopped looking anything alike, and Arielle was the only one of us to ever be recognized as one of my parents’ kids. They always assumed I was a friend of hers even though I was four years older,” she says.
She pauses for a moment, staring out the window again.
“Arielle didn’t mean to treat me different, but when she got older, it was obvious that she got preferential treatment over me. It was automatic. My parents didn’t even have to think about it. She had better genes than me too, and that just got more obvious the older I got,” she continues.
Better genes?Not a chance.
“Did you have body image issues growing up?” I ask, feeling a little intrusive at the question but simultaneously wanting to know every last thing about Delilah, even her weaknesses. She’d have to have body issues if she thinks she’s not as attractive as Arielle.
“You know everything about me already,” she says with another laugh. “My mother fawned over Arielle so much because she looked just like her. She’s thin and tall with flowing reddish-brown hair. My mom fussed over her so much to make sure she always looked perfect because if Arielle didn’t look perfect, then my mom had to see an imperfect version of herself. I always just assumed I was ugly.”
“I mean, you’re beautiful, and I’ve seen your sister. She’s… fine, I guess, but she’s so generic-looking. She looks like every single twenty-one-year-old girl that I see all over the place. I would never be able to pick her face out in a crowd,” I reply, and she smiles warmly.
“Can you tell me what it is you like about how I look?” she asks nervously.
I smile back at her, watching the light catch her eyes as the sun begins to come through the blinds. “You might not believe me, but I had actually been watching you all night before you punched Elliot in the face. I couldn’t take my eyes off you,” I begin.
“Really? It’s so hard for me to believe that,” she says, her cheeks reddening with embarrassment.
“It’s true,” I insist. “I was captivated by your long dark hair. It looked almost black in the nightclub, but the first time I ever saw it in sunlight, it was this beautiful chocolate brown color. I thought about that for a long time. Your eyes also give you this mystery. Green isn’t common.”
Her eyes dart away from me, shy from my praise. “I didn’t know you felt that way. I thought I was so out of place in Agave that night. Regan really wanted me to go so that I could get back at Elliot, but then when I actually had the chance to go after him and embarrass him, she tried to stop me. I think she just wanted to drag me along to the club.”
“But you had other plans,” I say with a laugh. I smack my fist into my palm. “And you really got that fucker good.”
Her eyes twinkle at the memory. “Oh, but you were pissed about it, talking about how I got blood on your precious dance floor.”
“It was opening night.”
“And?”
“And I wanted it to be perfect.”
“But you got me instead,” she replies with a wink.
For the first time, there’s no mask, no filter over Delilah’s words or actions. She’s opening up to me, letting me see the inner parts of her soul, and I think…
I think I’m falling in love.
16
Akim
