has betrayed us with sex.
And why? Why would she do it? It isn’t like she’s sex starved. She and Pop have sex. She isn’t one of those repressed and lonely housewives from the fifties who never really had a choice but to get married to the first available beefcake and have babies and do her marital duty. Mom is a modern woman. A freaking surgeon. She cuts people open and takes them apart and then puts them back together. My mother is a titan. She’s a badass.
So why can’t she also be a decent person? Is that so much to ask? Mom always talks about how Afton and I (and Abby, eventually) need to be strong and good, as people but also as women. She likes to say we need to be the change the world needs—something ripped off from Gandhi, I think. She expects us to do our best, and we do. We get straight As. We participate in the requisite extracurricular activities, and we excel in those, too. We have been model children.
And all this time, Mom has been screwing around.
I really, really want to hate her.
“Ada?” Afton prompts quietly.
“Why is sex such a big deal?” I ask, more to myself than to my sister.
“Oh. Right. I used to think it wasn’t a big deal,” Afton says. “I used to see sex as a purely physical thing, something programed into our animal brain, or whatever. I didn’t think it had to mean anything. I was pretty eager to cash in my V-Card. But now—”
“I guess I couldn’t possibly understand,” I snap, “because I’m a naive little virgin.”
She cocks her head, confused at my sudden attitude. “What couldn’t you possibly understand?”
“Why everyone around me feels like sex is the thing to do.”
Her cheeks get pink. “Everyone?”
“Well, you told me I need to find some cute boy to sleep with so I could get over Leo.”
And just like that, we’re back to fighting. And it’s my fault.
“You know I didn’t mean it like that,” Afton says, her eyes dropping like I’ve embarrassed her somehow. “I was just—”
“I think you did mean it. Otherwise you wouldn’t have said it. Because that’s exactly what you would do.”
Afton’s mouth snaps closed so hard her teeth click. “Hey. Don’t be a bitch.”
Oh, so now she’s calling me a bitch. “Who, me?” I pretend to look around. “I guess it’s better than me being a fucking square, though, right?”
Afton’s eyes narrow. She stares at me silently for a minute. Then she says, “Where is your new boyfriend, anyway?”
I bristle. “Nick is not my boyfriend. We’re just hanging out.”
“You’ve been hanging out all day.”
“It’s nothing. He was nice to me last night when I was sick.”
“Yes, I was wondering about that. Were you sick last night?” she asks, blue eyes sharp on me. “Really? Because I think you were faking it to get out of having dinner with everyone. And that’s normally my move.” She sighs. “I don’t want to fight anymore. I don’t know what bug crawled up your butt today, but it’s not okay for you to just puke your rage all over me. Why are you even so mad? I mean, I get that you’re still steamed about Leo, or at least I would be. But you don’t have to take it out on me.”
She’s right. It’s Mom I’m really pissed at. I should apologize. I know that. I should be an adult about it. But I also still see the common sense in getting Afton to stay away from me. It’s a painful push and pull with us, like turning magnets toward and away from each other. I want to draw her in, confide in her, work it through with her, get her advice, get her sympathy, get her support. And I also want to push her away so she doesn’t get hurt.
Sisterhood is complicated.
And in some irrational way I do blame Afton. If Afton hadn’t taken Abby to hula class—if they hadn’t both insisted on freaking hula, instead of paddleboarding like I wanted, none of this would have happened. I’d still be blissfully unaware of what is going on with Mom.
But I can’t say any of this, so I have to think up another reason.
I start with the obvious. “You didn’t tell me about you and Logan breaking up.”
She frowns. “Well, like I said before, you had your own thing—”
“A good sister would have told me. We always tell each other everything. I told you about Leo. And if you’d told