Lanie shook her head in disgust. “Don’t make a joke about this. I know it’s hard to understand, but we fell in love. Not at first, you know. At first it was . . .” She trailed off and waved her hand, a dismissive gesture that turned my stomach. “But I got pregnant. It was an accident. I was going to have an abortion; I had the appointment scheduled and everything. But then I started thinking about you, and about what you would do if you were in my situation. You wouldn’t have the abortion. You’d keep the baby and dedicate yourself to being a good mother. So I called Adam and told him I was pregnant. And . . . And Adam said that he would, you know, do the right thing and marry me.” Lanie paused to purse her lips wryly. “He also offered to support us financially, without any other commitment. I think he nearly had a heart attack when I said I accepted his proposal of marriage.”
“And now? Are you . . . happy?”
“That’s a simple question with a complicated answer,” she said, her face twisted in an unreadable expression. She left the bed, dropping to her knees on the ground in front of me. “I know I don’t deserve your forgiveness.”
Embarrassed, I looked away. “Lanie, get up.”
“I know I don’t deserve it,” she repeated, grabbing my hands earnestly. “But I’m asking for it anyway.”
My instinct, honed after ten long years during which I was furious with her, was to snap that she had always taken things she didn’t deserve, that maybe if she hadn’t always been so goddamn entitled we wouldn’t be in this mess. But one look at her wet eyes stopped me. It wasn’t true, after all; Lanie hadn’t always been like that. Once she had been my favorite person in the world, the one I trusted more than anyone else. She had changed once before; it was possible she had changed again. I might not be ready to forgive and forget, but maybe I was finally ready to talk.
“You really hurt me,” I said.
One fat tear dripped cinematically down her cheek. “I know.”
“You were supposed to be the one person who never betrayed me.”
“I know. Jesus, Josie, I know. I’ve spent the last ten years telling myself that. I made a huge mistake, a huge mess of everything. There’s nothing that I can do that will make it better.”
She rocked back on her heels, more tears quivering in her eyes. I wished I could say something. I wished I could forgive her, or tell her that I would forgive her someday. But I couldn’t make myself say the words, not yet.
“I know I can never take back what I did, but do you think we’ll ever be okay again?”
I shrugged. “You’re my sister.”
It wasn’t really an answer, but Lanie smiled anyway.
chapter 14
Later that night, long after Aunt A’s friends and colleagues had gone home, after Aunt A had sent herself to bed, and after Ellen and her family had helped me clean up and then left for the hotel, I found myself alone in the living room with Caleb. I sat on the couch, staring at him while he hovered in the doorway, the few yards between us feeling ten times their size. We hadn’t been alone since he’d driven me home from the funeral, and we hadn’t had a conversation of more than twenty words since the previous night.
He picked up his suit jacket from the back of a nearby armchair and looked at me. “Jo—”
“How did you know?” I asked abruptly. I hated myself immediately for the question. I needed to mend my relationship with Caleb, soothe the hurt my lies had caused, not drag my sister into things.
He tilted his head at me, confusion flickering in his gray eyes. “What do you mean?”
“Yesterday, when Lanie pretended to be me. How did you know that she wasn’t?”
“Dunno.” He shrugged. “I just did.”
“But you didn’t even know she existed.”
“Yeah, but I know you.” He caught himself and looked away. “I thought I did, at least.”
His words stole my breath, painfully reminding me of how much I had hurt the man I loved.
“Caleb—” I started, but my throat felt suddenly parched and I grasped at a half-empty glass of water on the coffee table, chugging the contents.
Caleb frowned slightly. “I think that was left over from the reception.”
Grimacing, I set down the glass and crossed the room to stand before him. I had to tell him the whole, messy truth while I still had the courage. I knew how easy it would be for me to omit my history with Adam, to slip back into familiar patterns of lying, but I also knew how much our relationship now depended on honesty. If I wanted to make things right with Caleb—and I did, oh, I did—I needed to start being more truthful.
I took a deep breath and said, “Caleb, I have to tell you something.”
His face hardened, and he backed away slightly.
“It’s not . . .” I started before trailing off lamely. Better to just get it over with. “Before Adam was Lanie’s husband, he was my boyfriend.”
Caleb lifted his dark brows in surprise, and I wished I knew what he was thinking. I doubted that was the revelation he had been expecting.
“Adam and I had been dating for three years when Lanie slept with him,” I continued. “Or he slept with her. Or they slept with each other. I don’t know anymore. One of them was drunk, one of them was high, I don’t know who was more culpable. I don’t know that it matters. But Adam’s defense has always been that he thought Lanie was me.”
“Bullshit.”
I cracked a smile. “That’s the most succinct description of the situation I’ve heard yet.”
Caleb reached out and gently tucked my short hair behind my ear. “Adam’s clearly a bloody idiot.”
“He is,” I agreed quietly, holding myself very still in case Caleb wanted to lean in and kiss me.
He didn’t. Instead, he pulled his hand away from my hair and replaced it at his side, falling silent. I felt on the verge of tears, but I hadn’t earned the right to cry over the circumstances—they were, after all, of my own making.
“That’s why I never told you about Lanie. She hurt me so much that I couldn’t even stand to think about her. I just wanted to forget she existed. I didn’t know how to explain any of that to you.”
Caleb sighed heavily. “I wish you’d tried.”
Swallowing back tears, I nodded.
Caleb looked down at the jacket in his hands and glanced toward the door.
“Well,” I said, my heart feeling like lead. “I guess you’re heading back to the hotel.”
Then he lunged forward and kissed me, an abrupt, forceful kiss, the kind that left a person winded. When he pulled away, my lips felt bruised.
Reaching behind Caleb, I locked the front door, and he took my hand to lead me up the staircase. In the velvet darkness of my old bedroom, he lowered me down onto the twin bed and arranged his body over mine. I closed my eyes to blot out the subtle glow of the plastic stars; I wanted to focus on nothing other than Caleb, on the familiar scratch of his stubble against my face and the heaviness of his warm, callused hands on my rib cage.
“Are we okay?” I whispered.
Caleb’s hand paused, and he pulled back slightly. “Let’s not ask the big questions tonight. I don’t know where we go from here. I just know that I’ve missed you, and I think you’ve missed me. It’s been a hard twenty-four hours, and I just want you in my arms. Is that okay?”
I nodded fiercely and wrapped my arms around his neck, pulling him closer. As his mouth, lips soft and tasting of coffee, closed over mine, I willingly shuttered my mind and surrendered my body.