The Trouble With Flirting (9 page)

I sit on Adam’s bed with my knees drawn up and my arms wrapped around them. My shocked brain is playing through the same words over and over.
It can’t be true. Dad would never do something like that.
But he did. And beneath the shock, something else is beginning to burn.

Anger.

I stare unblinking at Adam’s cupboard doors as tears slowly distort my vision. I hear Adam saying goodnight to his friends. They all traipse outside. The front door closes and Adam’s footsteps move towards his bedroom.

He stops in the doorway. Sighs. “Livi, do we have to do this—” His words falter. “What’s wrong?”

“My dad,” I say, my voice coming out strangely hoarse. I’m still staring at the cupboard doors, but they’re swimming now. Swimming through furious, unshed tears.

Adam is across the room in a second, sitting on the bed and leaning towards me. “What happened? Is he okay?”

My head moves slowly from side to side. “No. He’s a lying, cheating bastard.”

“What? Why?”

I blink. A tear drops onto my cheek. I swipe at it before turning to look at Adam. Four words boom inside my head. Four words demanding to be said out loud. Four words I’m terrified of saying, because uttering them will make them real. Four words I have no hope of holding in.

“I have a sister.”

Adam’s eyes grow wider.

The words sound foreign. Ridiculous. So I say them again. “I have a sister.”

“You … have a sister?”

The rage boils over. “I HAVE A SISTER. A seventeen-year-old half-sister. Because my father couldn’t keep his hands off some other woman. Because my mom and I weren’t good enough for him. Because he clearly didn’t give a damn about the fact that
he was married
!” I grasp the sleeve of Adam’s T-shirt in my fist. “How could he do this to us? To my mom? How could he
lie
to us all this time? And this other woman. How could she go after a man who
already belonged to someone else
?”

Adam carefully removes my fist and holds my hand in both of his. “How did you find out?”

“He phoned to tell me. He—he said it ‘came to light,’ so now he had to tell me about it, and I don’t know what that means because I put the phone down after he reached the part about having another daughter. Another daughter!
I’m
supposed to be his only daughter!”

Adam rubs my hand. “Have you spoken to your mom?”

I close my eyes and shake my head. “I want to. And then I don’t. I don’t know what to say. If I’m feeling hurt, can you imagine how she must be feeling? And it’s really late. She’s probably … I don’t know. I just don’t know.” I grab a cushion and climb off the bed with it. I hug it to my chest as I pace. “I can’t figure out what to feel. One moment I’m furious, and then … I think about how … he didn’t want us.” I stop pacing. “He wanted someone else. And then I just want to cry. And crying’s so stupid. He’s not worth it.” I continue my angry stomping. “Horrible, lying, cheating—STUPID SHOES!” I yell as I trip over a pair of running shoes on the floor. “Why do things
always
jump in front of me when I’m trying to walk?”

“Well, uh—”

“Don’t answer that.” I sit on the edge of the bed with my arms wrapped around the cushion. “I’m sorry. We haven’t spoken all week, and now I’m dumping my problems on top of you.”

“Livi, we’ve been dumping our problems on top of each other for six years. That’s what friends do, remember?”

I shrug. Does that mean I should be telling my new friends about this? Somehow, I can’t imagine sitting down with Allegra, Charlotte, Courtney, and Amber and talking about my father’s secret relationship with another woman and how I suddenly have a sister. I imagine it would be more like discussing the latest scandal in their favourite TV show than them providing support for me through a difficult time.

Fortunately, I have Adam. And Sarah. Who will be receiving a call from me first thing in the morning.

“I think I should go to bed,” I say.

“Will you be able to sleep?”

I rub my eyes. “I don’t know.” Both my mind and body feel unbearably weary all of a sudden, so I sure hope so. “I’ll just … try to think of nothing.”

From:
Alivia Howard

Sent:
Sun 16 Mar, 1:04 am

To:
Carl

Subject:
Dear Carl

Dad is a gigantic ass.

And … I have a sister.

In. Sane.

(And I want to punch Dad.)

___________________________________

“Can I get you anything else?” Adam asks, eyeing my mug of tea and the open jar of peanut butter on the table in front of me.

I pull the spoon out of my mouth and shake my head. I don’t feel like eating anything in particular, but I’m hungry, and I like peanut butter. So here I am eating it for breakfast.

Adam turns back to the frying pan on the stove and cracks several eggs into it.

“My mom phoned this morning,” I say, slowly stirring my tea.

Adam swings around. “Oh. How is she? What did she say?”

“She’s … I don’t know. Angry, confused, hurt. She’s staying with my grandparents in Hillcrest. She found out about the affair on Friday night and left home yesterday morning.”

“Did she say how she found out?”

“Yes. So, um, apparently my parents never use each other’s laptops, but my dad was supposed to forward something to my mom—some document they both needed to sign or something—but the email didn’t go through. Dad said he sent it, but Mom said she never got it. Dad was in the shower, and Mom was frustrated that she hadn’t got this thing yet, so she opened up his laptop and looked at his emails. She couldn’t find it, so she thought maybe he’d deleted it by accident. She went to the Trash folder, and amongst all the other stuff there, she saw something that said, ‘Please can I meet you.’” I stare at my tea for a while, then sip it. “Imagine if she’d just thought it was spam and hadn’t opened it. Everything would still be fine.”

Adam scoops his fried egg onto a piece of toast, turns the stove off, and sits down. “I’m guessing the email was from your … half-sister.”

My eyes flick up to his. “It’s weird saying it, right?”

“Very.”

I take a deep breath. “Yes, it was from her. She explained who she was and how her mother had always refused to tell her anything about her father, but that she’d finally found out who he was. Dad hadn’t replied to the email. I guess he just deleted it. Mom almost thought it was one of those hoax emails, but the girl wasn’t asking for money. She was asking to meet. So Mom confronted Dad about it, and that’s how it all came out.”

“Your poor mom,” Adam says quietly. “It must have been such a shock.”

I scoop more peanut butter from the jar and nibble on it. “She said she never suspected a thing. Never doubted his loyalty. Never believed he could lie to her so convincingly.” I lick the spoon clean. “Part of me is really mad at this girl for sending the email. If she had no interest in meeting Dad, the affair would probably have stayed a secret forever and we’d all be happy.”

“And the other part of you?” Adam asks.

“The other part of me is … curious,” I admit. “About her. What she’s like. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. I don’t want to think about it now. Um, so where have you been going every morning this past week?” I tap my spoon against the side of my mug. “Every day I woke up and you were already gone. Which was great, since things were awkward between us and I was avoiding you, but where were you?”

“Gym,” Adam says, swallowing his final mouthful. “With Luke.”

“Gym? Since when do you go to gym?”

“Hey, this magnificent body does not maintain itself, you know.”

I start laughing. I didn’t think I’d be able to laugh today, but here I am laughing at Adam’s apparently magnificent body. “You’re right. Your body has been mind-bogglingly magnificent ever since you got back from America. What exactly were you doing at summer camp? Weightlifting the campers?”

“Yes. I jogged around every morning with a camper over each shoulder.” His smile slips as his phone dings and he picks it up to check the message. With a frown, he places the phone screen-down on the table.

“Everything okay?” I ask.

“Yes.” He smiles. “What are you doing today?”

“I’m going to a vintage market with Allegra and Courtney. I thought about cancelling, but, you know, then I’d just sit around here thinking about how my father has ruined my family. So … yeah. Want to come with?”

“I’d rather be draped naked over a beehive.”

“Still not a fan of markets, huh?”

“Nope. But … maybe we can do something later? This evening? Unless you have, I don’t know, a date or something.”

“Nah, that was last night.”

Surprise colours Adam’s expression. “Really?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, that guy you said was checking you out in class?”

I nod, pleased Adam remembers me telling him about Jackson. I thought he tuned out whenever Sarah and I started talking about guys. “Yes, that’s the one. Movie, dinner, and lots of making out.”

“Uh …”

“Sorry. Too much info?”

Adam clears his throat. “Right, so that explains the dress and the hair and everything last night.”

I twist a golden strand of hair around my finger. “You hate it, don’t you.”

“What? No, I don’t hate it. I just … liked you as a redhead.”

I roll my eyes at him. “Gingers aren’t cool. People make jokes about them.”

“Firstly, so what? Secondly, you’re definitely more of a redhead than a ginger. And thirdly, if red hair wasn’t cool, there wouldn’t be so many celebrities dying their hair that colour. And don’t forget about all the kick-ass fictional redheads. Like Jean Grey and Ariel and Princess Fiona from
Shrek
.”

“And Dumbledore.”

“Exactly. Let’s not forget Dumbledore.”

“Well, anyway, Jackson called me sexy, so the blonde hair was worth it.”

Adam sighs and says nothing.

“You’re trying really hard not to roll your eyes or mime puking, aren’t you?”

“Pretty much.”

I stick my tongue out, then push my chair back and stand up. “Time to shower. Unless you want to go first?”

“No, go ahead.” Adam places my mug and his plate in the sink.

“Thanks. And, um, I’ll do the dishes before I go out. You can leave them.”
See? I can take responsibility.

He smiles. “Thanks, Liv.”

“And Adam? Can I say something else?”

“Yes?”

“You were right. Which I guess isn’t surprising, since you turn out to be right about ninety-nine percent of the time. And in this case you were right about me, um, struggling a bit with—as you put it—‘real life.’” I add the air quotes with my fingers. “But I’m trying. I paid Luke back for the grocery shopping he did last weekend, and I saw the milk was finished on Thursday, so I bought more on my way home. And I managed to get most of my laundry done this week, so I won’t be borrowing any more of your clothes.”

I half expect Adam to give me a slow clap and a sarcastic ‘Well done’—after all, as far as accomplishments go, buying milk and doing laundry aren’t exactly high up—but instead he looks at his feet, shrugs, and says, “It wasn’t … such a huge deal. I didn’t—I mean—yeah, anyway. Thanks.”

I watch him as he leaves the kitchen. “Weird,” I murmur to myself.