and I give him a quick peck on his lips. He then fixes my hair again, which I’ve started to think is just an excuse for him to touch me, which I kinda sorta like.
“Stop trying to be sweet or your rules and my confession will all go to shit,” I warn him.
“Sustained, you may proceed,” he says, pretending to lock his mouth again.
I’ve just told Liam about the most important event that shaped my life. He hasn’t looked away from me and hardly interrupted, giving me one hundred percent of his attention and it’s doing all kinds of things to my insides. I feel like we’re in a time capsule, a sort of bubble. It’s almost as if nothing and no one can get to us while we’re comfortably suspended over 5th Ave.
For the first time in my life, I crave telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth so help me God. I’ve never spoken about the past because I wasn’t going that way. But he’s right! I need this rewind in order to finally be able to press play. I actually want to tell him everything.
“Edge Of Seventeen” by Stevie Nicks
I didn’t see or hear from Jeffery for a whole year, and yet I slept in his T-shirt and with the image of him every night…
My sweet sixteen wasn’t what I’d expected. My parents surprised me and invited all my friends and their friends to the Rainbow Room. They closed down the whole place and tried to throw the party of the year. They spared no expense. Emily’s sister Jenna was a party planner and she designed a party like you’ve never seen before. My parents were both busy with their lives, most of the time dealing with the pressure of being the Jones’ that everybody else needed to keep up with. My dad was the philandering lawyer that pretended to have late-night meetings and screwed every secretary, assistant, and intern he ever hired, and my mother feigned that it was all peachy and pretended she didn’t drink like a sailor to forget that everything was, in fact, not peachy. I had more freedom and money than most kids my age. I partly attribute my fibbing skills to my lying parents; I’d learned from the best.
If you asked anybody about Robert and Laura Klein, they’d all tell you that they were the perfect Upper East Side family. Emily’s mom and my mother were best friends and even Emily’s mom, Adele, would tell you that my parents had a flawless marriage. Heck, if you asked my parents, they’d probably believe their own lies and tell you that they were the luckiest two people in the whole wide world and loved each other from here to eternity. I guess it takes liars to raise liars.
I didn’t want a party, I wanted to stay home and come up with a cool story to tell Emily about how I snuck out and had sex with some hot guy I met at a club. But thanks to my parents and their brilliant idea, I had to mingle and pretend like I was having fun.
My other surprise that night was that my brother came back from school for the weekend for my big birthday. I was actually happy to see Eddie. I’d missed him a lot while he was away. I came home every day to a quiet house, my mother passed out and my dad coming home late—if he came home at all. The housekeeper would warm my food and say three words to me before going home for the day. The only love I got was from Eddie, who was the only person I had no need to lie to. I could’ve told Em the truth a million times. I could’ve stayed at her house and not felt like a lonely, unwanted stray dog, but I didn’t want to blow my parents’ cover. They had an image to uphold and I was an accomplice.
With my arms still embracing Eddie, I felt eyes burning a hole into me. I turned around to see Jeffery, my Jeffery, watching us. He didn’t look pleased; he looked downright pissed.
“Happy sixteenth birthday, Sara!” he said, which almost sounded like a curse coming out of his seething mouth. My heart began beating erratically and the air around me began to thin out as his presence at my sweet sixteenth came into focus.
I heard Eddie talk somewhere very far in the background as my heartbeat