Chapter Eight
Leah
In their truest form, my parents hadn’t intentionally blown up my phone with calls and texts.
There was no frantic urgency, no yelling.
The family group chat was active with my parents chatting with Mags, talking about what a lovely weekend it was and how nice it was to be back out for one of Mags’s games.
Mags had been the one who called, followed by texts that said Can you please just respond to them?
But every message from my parents was laced with a passive-aggressive overtone about how great it was to see both of us and that they hoped they could say goodbye before their flight took off.
None of it made me feel particularly motivated to offer an olive branch, even though holding a grudge against my parents was categorically my worst nightmare.
Knowing that they were mad at me made me want to break out in hives—I realistically probably would.
I’d never handled anxiety well, but I was also just as mad at them in return.
And for once, I wanted to be allowed to be mad at them.
Really, actually mad at them. Not in a quiet way, not in a silently fuming in my bedroom kind of way. Actively, directly mad at them.
My post-sex glow didn’t stand a chance against the rage that had taken up a home in my chest.
Only adding fuel to the fire was consistently being proven right.
This was exactly why living with my sister was a bad idea and why I hadn’t wanted to do it.
Even with my parents states away from me, I couldn’t actually escape them.
I’d gotten myself the only roommate in the world who could effectively guilt-trip me in person and in the family group chat.
I took a deep breath as I went up to my apartment and unlocked the door. An NBA game was loudly playing on the TV, telling me that Mags was home.
I hung up my purse on the hook near the door and placed my keys on the rack. To signify that I wasn’t happy, I did the best thing I could think of, which was pathetically kicking off my shoes in a way that I hoped sounded agitated to Mags’s ear.
As I rounded the corner from the entryway hallway into our open-plan living area, Mags turned to look at me. She leaned against the counter, watching the game on the living room TV from the kitchen.
“Dude, Mom and Dad are pissed at you,” Mags said, her mouth full of the yogurt parfait she was eating.
Even though I knew that, Mags saying those words stirred up the worst kind of feeling—fear.
I hated disappointing my parents, hated knowing that they were upset.
I’d dedicated basically my entire life to being a people pleaser to every single person I ever met.
My parents were very high on my list—next to teachers and bosses—of people I didn’t want to ever upset if I could help it.
My sister was the only exception, which went without saying.
But swirled in with the fear was a completely new and different feeling I wasn’t sure I’d experienced before.
I thought back to everything GJ had said to me earlier.
Even if she didn’t completely understand because her family wasn’t a fucked up mess like mine, it was obvious she agreed that I was allowed to be upset.
Having that confirmation was weirdly validating, like maybe it was actually okay for me to be scared but also be angry.
“I don’t really care,” I said. I didn’t sound at all confident, but I hoped that I would believe it more as time went on.
“You might want to. I know they’ve never had to, but they strike me as the kind of people to follow through on promises about not paying for school or whatever.”
“Then I guess we’ll see,” I responded with a shrug.
I fought off the tiniest bit of a smile at how good it felt to say that. It felt kind of badass—which was not at all something someone who was actually a badass would think.
Mags blinked at me. “What’s wrong with you?” Mags asked. It wasn’t even said rudely, which was the most impressive feat of all. She was genuinely concerned. But my sister expressing any kind of emotion at all had a way of annoying me.
I sighed, throwing my hands up. “Maybe I am mad at them. I don’t know. They can be disappointed, but I’m also allowed to be. I’m a person, even if they like to forget I am.”
“Okay.” Mags drew the word in a way that was infuriatingly dismissive.
“Where have you been, by the way? You basically ran off and have been totally MIA. And you look…” Mags looked like a man trying to figure out an answer to the question Do you notice anything different about me?
Her expression suddenly went tight. “You’re seeing someone again, aren’t you? ”
I didn’t have an answer. It was written all over my face—I’d always been a bad liar—and the glow radiating from me.
It was hard hiding a crush, but it was even harder when the sex was that good, and our interactions were that positive.
So far, GJ was two-for-two in me leaving her place without me hating her, which was more than I could say about literally anyone else I’d ever fooled around with.
I knew I was playing a dangerous game—both with Mags wanting to murder me if she found out, and GJ being the noncommittal type—but part of me didn’t care.
It was nice to be in a dream world for once that lasted past the first five minutes of afterglow.
Mags didn’t have to ever find out the truth, and things were never going to become serious with GJ.
If anything, part of what made it all so fun was that there were no feelings involved.
Mags shook her head. “I don’t care who the asshole is this time, just don’t make me hear about it.
And stop letting them affect how you talk to Mom and Dad.
Giving them an attitude because your most recent lay won’t call you back, just like they always do, isn’t fair.
”Anger bubbled through me. Normally, I just brushed the feeling off and left to stew in my room alone until I forced myself to get over it.
I loved compartmentalizing, loved pushing a feeling down.
But GJ was right that I still had a life to live.
I’d never thought about it that way, but I had so many more years ahead of me.
I didn’t want to spend the entire rest of my life dodging feelings with my family.
And I definitely didn’t want to be someone who was still bending over backward, scared of my parents, in my forties, or when I had kids of my own.
Maybe it was time I at least tried to be a real person around them instead of a fucking robot.
“So now you’re assuming the only reason I’d ever be in a bad mood is because of the person I’m seeing? You don’t think I have any right to be mad at Mom and Dad?”
Mags shrugged. She had the exact demeanor I’d gotten used to seeing from her—that half-removed, you’re being kind of crazy right now shrug.
I’d never been so desperate for the free will to wrestle her to the ground like we used to do when we were kids.
“I don’t think I really see where you’re coming from. Nothing has changed.”
“That’s exactly my point—nothing has changed. This is exactly how my entire life has always been. Do you not see anything wrong with that?”
Mags blinked at me. “It’s okay if you’re scared to graduate.”
“What could you even possibly mean by that?” I threw my hands up in the air in frustration.
I missed the woman I’d been just half an hour ago, warm and safe in GJ’s bed.
There was no real life in her apartment.
It was just the two of us in the most addictive, all-consuming kind of way. I was already itching to go back.
“I don’t know. You’re just acting so weird. I think it probably has something to do with how you always act like more of a bitch when you’re seeing someone because you only date losers, but since you’re so insistent it’s not—”
“I mean, okay. Following your thinking, maybe I really don’t want to graduate. And maybe that has something to do with how you and Mom and Dad don’t listen to me about anything. But that doesn’t change the fact that you don’t take anything I say seriously.”
Mags’s face went hard. “Hey, that’s not fair.”
“I know you hate having to look at yourself in the mirror and realize that you kind of suck as a sister sometimes, but maybe it’s time you do.”
“Leah—”
I brushed by Mags to go to my room and slammed the door behind me.
I was out of breath and scared out of my mind being so direct with my sister, but it also felt good to finally do something. After years of taking every single shot my family took at me like it was nothing, it was time they started getting it back.
Leah
Can I come over tonight for a sleepover?
Soph, always with her phone in her hand and always equipped for an emergency, responded immediately.
Soph
Of course. I’ll order us delivery from that Thai place.
Leah
You are my moon and stars
Soph
Just get your ass over here, I’m in the middle of rewatching Grey’s Anatomy and I will start this episode without you if you take too long
I smiled, feeling better for about half a second, and tossed my phone on my bed as I gathered everything I’d need for my classes tomorrow.
But the crushing realization that I was doing this because I was feuding with my family was hard to completely shake off. As badly as being ghosted or dumped, or watching my crush flirt with someone else hurt, fighting my family hurt a million times more.
I arrived at Soph’s in practically record time, wiping furious tears from my eyes the entire walk over.
I’d been able to avoid crossing paths with Mags again on the way out; she’d made herself comfortable in the living room and was either too distracted by the game or too disinterested in engaging with me to acknowledge me leaving.
I didn’t mind; I’d had enough uncharacteristically bold moments of confrontation today to last me months, if not a lifetime.