Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 84000 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 420(@200wpm)___ 336(@250wpm)___ 280(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84000 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 420(@200wpm)___ 336(@250wpm)___ 280(@300wpm)
Mom lets out a strangled, “Oh god.”
“I knew I shouldn’t have seen it,” Noah says. “He was holding some kid’s hand. A girl, I think. They both had ice creams. I was frozen for… I don’t know how long. Eventually I called out to him and pressed down on my board. But when I got up the other side, he was gone.”
My mom’s hand slips across her lips and she shakes her head.
“Next time I saw him, I expected him to say something but he didn’t. So neither did I. I’ve thought about it for years. Almost asked him about it so many times. Something always stopped me before I could get the words out. Like I knew I’d be breaking the spell if I spoke it out loud.”
My insides pinch. I’m so sad Noah’s had to keep this to himself all these years.
“I had no idea,” Mom says, which totally pisses me off, because it couldn’t have been beyond her imagination that something like this could have happened. Why couldn’t she have been honest? With all of us. With herself.
“Why didn’t you just divorce him?” I spit the words at her like darts.
“And then what?”
“And then you don’t live a lie,” I say. “Then you tell your children the truth.”
Noah squeezes my hand like he knows my anger isn’t anger at all, but deep wounds, raw pain, cuts so deep I don’t know they will ever heal. Every fragment of childhood memory is disintegrating, like someone’s erasing my hard drive. I can feel the deletion in my brain. Washing Dad’s car with Oliver and having the world’s best water fight in the middle of it. Family holidays on the lake, where the five of us would pose outside the cabin every year, each picture taking a spot on the hallway windowsill. My parents at my graduation, holding hands, tears in their eyes.
None of it was real.
And now it’s all gone.
THREE
Sophia
As I close my hotel room door, I finally allow myself to drop the fake smile I’ve worn since boarding the plane from New York to Vegas.
There’s no way I can tell my best friend, who is about to start married life, that my father has had a secret second family for the last twenty-five years. No bride wants to hear about a seemingly fairy-tale marriage actually being a total sham. So I’ve been practicing my best fake smiles for the last week—since I learned my parents weren’t who I thought they were. That they are secret keepers. Cover-uppers. Liars.
I don’t know what’s real anymore.
I need my best friend. I want to cry and crawl under the covers and never come out. I long for something real. Something sure.
But my best friend is getting married, so it’s fake smiles, short skirts, and celebrations.
I abandon my suitcase in the hallway, kick off my shoes, and pull out my phone. I’ve been ignoring calls and texts from Noah and Oliver all week, but maybe my brothers are who I need. We’ve never been “group chat” siblings. Maybe it would be different if I’d had sisters, but with two brothers, the extent of our relationship when we’re not physically together is sharing jokes. Memes is where it begins and ends for us.
But no more.
I quickly create a group chat and type.
Hi, hope you’re both still alive.
It’s about as gushy as I get with my brothers.
Noah replies right away.
I’m avec pulse. Anyone heard from Dad?
My stomach twists. I don’t want to hear from Dad. I’m not sure when I’ll ever be able to speak to him.
Does he keep a schedule? Does he make sure he spends equal time with all of us? Or did we get him for more time because there were three of us and he only had two children in his other family? Or did he just spend more time with the family he preferred?
And was that us? Or them?
I think I’m going to vomit. I rush to the bathroom and grip the sides of the sink, trying to keep down everything threatening to spill out. If I don’t, I’m worried I’ll never stop vomiting.
There’s a knock at the door, but I ignore it. My mind is full of my dad and his other family and whether he’d chase his other kids around the yard with a hose, or paint them head to toe with the paint he was supposed to be using on the shiplap like he did to Oliver one summer. My tummy hurt from laughing so much when I saw Oliver completely covered in white paint.
Mom hadn’t been so amused. The paint was water-based, but he had paint in his hair for a week.
There’s more knocking at the door.
“Sophia!” Jules calls.
Shit.
I straighten, wipe my mouth with the back of my hand, and head to the door.
“Hey,” she says as I open the door, her eyes dancing and excited. “Can I get ready in here? Leo is on the phone and has the TV on, but I just want to listen to Taylor Swift and have some fun.” She’s wearing a robe with a towel on her head and pulling a carry-on suitcase.