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She nods. “That’s why we’re here, actually.”
What is she talking about?
“She’s freaking out because this thing with Jake is getting serious and she doesn’t know how to do it, and I just…I just can’t do any of this if you still like her.”
“Not the way you mean,” I say it again.
She presses her palms together, all vulnerability. “What doyoumean?”
This is a rare side of her, but I can’t exactly stop and treasure it. “Was there a guy you liked when you were a teenager?”
“A few.”
“Someone you never expected to date? A member of One Direction,” I say. “Or an actor.”
“Do I look like a One Direction fan?” she asks.
“Was there someone like that?”
“Sure,” she says. “Ryan Gosling was dreamy.”
“Do you ever think about him now?”
“If I see a headline with him,” she says.
“How do you feel?”
“Young,” she says.
That’s it. But it’s not all of it. There’s so much and I barely understand it myself.
There are too many layers around it. And those layers are a mess. Thorns and barbed wire.
For years, I avoided facing it. I used my crush on Lexi as a way to not face it.
She’s always been a fantasy. And I won’t lie: my desire to escape into a fantasy is still there. Only it’s different. It’s smarter, now. It wants to latch onto someone else, to find a vision of them that’s all wedding bells and happily ever afters.
“It was like that,” I say. “She was out of reach, the way a celebrity was. And it was different, too. I wasn’t happy to move in with Grandma. Mom was never going to win Parent of the Year, but she was my mom. I loved her. I wanted to protect her. I wanted to stay with her. I hated this new, shiny place. I had no idea how anyone felt at home here. Then I saw Lexi.”
Apprehension fills Deanna’s face.
“It was like something out of a movie,” I say. “This beautiful blonde, about my age, sitting at the pool in a pink bikini. All bright and brilliant and interested in me.”
“She makes me feel like that, too,” she says. “It’s different, because she’s my sister, but—”
“She is bright and charming.”
“She is.” Deanna nods. She waits. She gives me space to explain.
I do my best. “For the first time, in years, I felt wanted. I saw the beauty and possibility in the world. She became that for me. A fantasy of a life I could have.”
“You fantasized about being with her?”
“Sometimes,” I say. “But it wasn’t about sex or love or companionship even. It was about feeling that energy, the glow, being near the center of attention, being able to charm and smile and fit in any place I go.”
“She does that.”
“And I never felt that. Not here.”
