Total pages in book: 73
Estimated words: 67465 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 337(@200wpm)___ 270(@250wpm)___ 225(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 67465 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 337(@200wpm)___ 270(@250wpm)___ 225(@300wpm)
Even though I never wanted to tell anyone, I knew that when I got on the plane to fly back here, there was a point of no return. A point where nothing would make sense unless I explained everything to the people who needed answers, and I did owe them answers. My mom knows, most obviously, but she has no idea what happened with Tina or anything else after I left. Nanny doesn’t know anything, and Kimmy also doesn’t know anything. But if I’m going to stay and try and make a life here, the first step toward that would be honesty.
I never thought I’d have to tell Remi.
I thought my sister would do that after she found out. She’d waltz into Remi’s office at work or announce it over coffee with her. Oh, btw, my brother’s a bastard. Crazy, isn’t it? And that might explain a lot, but I still think he’s a prick of the first order.
“I get why you’re being super quiet. It’s okay. You don’t have to talk about it. We can just keep driving wherever and anywhere. I’m okay with silence. I might have to stop and get gas eventually, but that’s okay too.”
I make a split-second decision that I’m probably going to regret, but it’s a longing that goes bone-deep. “Your place then, if that’s okay.”
“Yeah, it’s okay.”
The rest of the ride is silent, but I think I do enough broody and loud thinking for the both of us.
Remi’s parent’s house—I guess it’s her place too—is older on the outside and inside, but it’s homey and nice in a way that no house of mine ever truly felt like, at least not for me, even before all things related to my life went up in flames. Remi’s room is fairly spacious. There are bifold doors on the one side for the closet and wooden slatted doors that must be original since the house was probably built in the seventies. The carpet might be original too. It’s red shag, which I’d find quite awesome at any other time. Even right now, I can somewhat appreciate it.
She has a double bed, and because I’m a big rude oaf, I flop down on it hard enough to rattle the pillows and shake the bedframe beneath. As Remi’s not a big rude oaf, when she flops down beside me, the bed hardly shifts. I have an arm thrown under my head, and I’m staring up at the white popcorn ceiling. She’s staring up too, and not at me. I don’t feel her gaze boring a hole through the side of my face. Her shoulder brushes against mine—her bare shoulder. A shiver quakes through my body. I’m lying on her bed, our bodies grazing, in her room, and her parents aren’t home.
Holy shit, how did any of this happen?
She doesn’t press me one bit. The only sound in the room is our breathing. In and out. Slow and even for her, a little more wrecked and ruined for me. I think it’s impossible to be an even breather when your chest is caving in.
I should get to it since she probably thinks I’m crazy. “My mom had an affair. My dad was working a lot at the time, so he never knew. He never thought I looked like him, but then Kimmy did, and he got suspicious and did a paternity test behind my mom’s back. He confronted her on my sixteenth birthday by telling us he had a surprise in the garage for both of us. I thought maybe it was a car, but no, it was that. He wanted to ruin the day I was born so that it would be spoiled for the rest of my life. Something about turnabout being fair play for him.”
“What the fuck?” Remi breathes. It’s not a good “what the fuck” either. It’s a “what the fuck” that says she’d like to unwind time and go back and save me from that birthday, from finding out that way, and from everything that came after. I wish she could. God, I wish she could.
“My parents were rich, and you know the whole cardinal thing about rich people. Secrets. They have secrets on top of secrets on top of secrets. Layers and layers of secrets. Secret sandwiches that they eat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. My dad didn’t want something so wretched to get out, so he agreed to keep it a secret, but he forced my mom and me into silence as well. He wanted me to leave, but I was sixteen and still a minor, and my mom fought for me.”
Remi sets her hand on my knee like it’s okay if I need to break down. Like she wouldn’t mind. She keeps it there like it’s also okay that I’m telling her all this, all this shit that fucked up my life and soul, shriveling up my heart.