for sleep or tomorrow to come, whichever happens first. My brain is spinning out. A cup of tea. That’s what I need. Something warm and comforting. Chamomile has the same flavor in Chicago or LA. So I pull off the covers and put on my bunny slippers—the ones my mom gave me for my thirteenth birthday—even though the bunnies are kind of creepy now that they’re each missing one eye, and I head downstairs, taking each step carefully so as not to wake anyone.
In the dark, the kitchen feels far away. I need to cross the long living room to get there, and I’m scared of knocking something over. I walk slowly, arms outstretched, and that’s how I’m standing when I first see them: like a cartoon sleepwalker.
My dad and Rachel sit close together on the couch in the den off to the side, a single reading light turned on above them. They can’t see me, thank God, because I’m now hiding behind a pillar. I feel embarrassed stumbling upon them like this and a little stunned too, since I can see that they are not merely strangers who decided on a lark to elope. They look like a real married couple.
This is intimate, and not in the way it was at dinner, when Rachel put her hand on my dad’s, a gesture that on reflection seemed more for Theo’s and my benefit. Now they are bent together, forehead to forehead, and there’s a photo album I’ve never seen before open on their laps. Must be Rachel’s. Is she showing my dad her before pictures? Her dead husband? Pictorial evidence that this house used to be filled with a functional family? I can’t hear what Rachel is saying, but there’s something about the hunch of her shoulders and the way my dad reaches up and touches her face—cups it between his palms, like it’s something precious and easily shattered—that tells me she’s crying. He might be too.
My heart pounds, and I feel sick to my stomach. I imagine the photos on her lap. Maybe there’s one of Theo, age five, being swung in the air between his parents. We have that picture in our before album. My mom on the right, my dad on the left, me in the middle, caught right at magic liftoff. I am smiling so big you can see that I’m missing a tooth. Did my dad show Rachel our pictures? Hand over everything—our entire history—just like that?
My eyes fill with tears, though I fight them. I’m not sure why I feel like crying. Suddenly, everything feels irrevocably broken in that way it can in the middle of night when you are alone. In that way it can when you are watching your father comfort his new wife. In that way it can when you too are hurting but there’s no one there to comfort you.
I walk backward, a silent moonwalk, a trip that feels so much longer going back than it did coming. I pray that they don’t see me, pray that I can get away before they start kissing. I cannot watch them kiss. When I finally get to the stairs, I force myself to go up slowly and noiselessly, one at a time. I force myself not to run away as fast as my creepy bunny slippers will take me.
CHAPTER 7
Day 15: better and worse and maybe better. Sun still shines with relentless aim and glare. My classmates are still fancy-pants, and the girls still somehow look more mature than me, more confident. As if sixteen years adds up to more out west than it does where I come from.
The humiliation begins early, in class. Good, I think. Bring it on. Let’s get this over with. Maybe I am my dad’s daughter after all. An optimist.
“The Gap is so pleb, don’t you think?” Gem asks her wonder twin, of course in reference to my jeans, though I have no idea what she means. Pleb, short for “plebian”? As in my pants are those of the common folk? Well, yes, yes they are. As are my Costco undies, which I’m tempted to pull down so she can kiss my ass.
The anger sharpens my wits, makes me want to advance rather than retreat. I will not engage with these girls. I’m not strong enough for that. But I will turn to Adrianna, who is sitting next to me, because, screw it, no time like the present to make an ally. I ignore my burning face,