27
The walk home is long, but not long enough in my opinion.
It takes extra long because Sam keeps kissing me at varying points of the journey, and time slips and blurs when he slips his hands into my hair. I could lose an age kissing that man.
He kisses me again when we reach the edge of my driveway, but this one is different to the others—all of the ones before this were this hungry, needy, thirsty, kicking-to-the-surface-to-breathe-again kisses, hands everywhere up and down, and we could have been driving through the galaxy at warp speed and I’d be none the wiser because it feels like that just being next to him, let alone being held by him.
But this kiss…he stands toe-to-toe with me, takes my face in both his hands, and his eyes don’t flicker down to my mouth; they just stay on me, and his cheeks twitch as he tries not to smile, and I don’t know why we’re always trying not to smile? And then he kisses me, softly at first and then more, but his pace remains the same—the kiss just gets deeper, and I think I begin to feel my roots stretch.
I don’t let my roots stretch very often. Barely ever and never suddenly. No deeper psychological reason other than the obvious ones. But I feel them stretching toward Sam, and even though he doesn’t actually, somehow he smells earthy, like the wet soil at the base of an old, big tree.
He holds my hand all the way until we reach the front porch and then I let go, not him, because I don’t want to know what it feels like to have him let go of me, in any capacity. Also, I don’t know what this is between us, but whatever it is, I don’t want my family fucking it up.
The living room light is on; I notice that before I swing open the door.
My sister’s sitting on the sofa, hands in her lap, face teary, our mom’s arms thrown around her.
“Georgia!” Mom stands.
Maryanne stands too.
I hover by the door, clock Tennyson leaning against a wall. His face is a little bruised, and for the first time in our lives, I notice he’s distanced himself from them.
“Georgia,” my mother says again, reaching out for me, and as she does, Sam shifts closer to me than he should be in their presence. Less than a foot.
But they won’t notice it—well, they will, but not in a conscious way—their brains will take it in because our brains take in everything, whether we realize it or not. They’ll make a subconscious note of it, but they won’t know what it means more than a niggle that maybe he likes me a bit more than as a friend.
“Come here, darling—sit,” she tells me, but I don’t move.
My gaze is fixed on my sister’s face.
People who have a narcissistic personality disorder are intensely skilled at impression management.
This is a make-or-break time for my sister. A lie she constructed and maintained for years and years has crashed and burned. She’s calculated enough to know that after tonight’s events, it won’t be the same as it was before; she can’t go on pretending like I’m the slut and she’s the victim. Crying to our mom is the most logical line of defense my sister has, because my mother has a parental leaning toward her more so than she does toward me.
I wonder what she’s told my mom. Whatever she’s told her, I don’t think Tennyson believes it, judging by his body language—slumped against a wall on the other side of the room, arms crossed to create a physical barrier between them. His head’s turned away from them, chin and brows low, jaw set. The way his arms are folded, even. He doesn’t realize it, but he’s flipping them off. It’s a gestural emblem. Whatever Maryanne’s selling…Tennyson isn’t buying it.
“I’m fine here,” I tell her, planting my feet. I feel better having Sam behind me. I don’t know why, and I feel annoyed at myself that I do. I don’t think it’s a guy thing—I think it’s a not-on-my-own thing.
Sam doesn’t do anything, doesn’t say anything—it’s not his fight, he doesn’t need to—but the light casts his shadow on me and I know he’s there and I’m not by myself, which is a very powerful thing to feel when you’ve felt by yourself most of your life.
“I’m so sorry, Gigi.” Maryanne shakes her head. “I’m so sorry.” She starts crying. “I didn’t know what to do—I didn’t know! I was so scared he’d hurt me or—worse!—hurt you, and so I didn’t do anything! Which is so awful of me—and I can’t believe that I—” She wipes her teary face. “But I felt so trapped, and so stuck, and I’m just so sorry, Georgia—” She goes on and on, and I tune out what she’s saying because what she’s saying with her words doesn’t mean shit; all I need is her face.
Her tone and her words are distressed. Her face… Sometimes she throws in AU1 and AU4s—looks of fear and sadness—but when she does, it’s out of sync with the correlating words.
Mostly, it’s AU7. Contempt. Her mouth can barely conjure up a frown. From a glance it might look like she is, but she’s not. It’s an AU13.
Imagine the face you make when someone offers you a dirty tissue. That’s how her face looks.
“Darling,” Mom says. “She was a victim—just like you.”
And I sort of laugh.
“Really?” I blink, incredulous.
My mom shakes her head and sighs. “Georgia—”
“Georgia!” Maryanne weeps. “I am so sorry.” But she’s shaking her head and moving her hands across her body—another gestural slip—she’s not sorry.
“She’s lying, Mom,” I sigh, and I sound sadder than I want to.
My mom sighs too. “Sweetheart, no, she’s not.”
“She is!” I insist, and across Maryanne’s face is a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it AU10. A scowl. Clear as day if you know to be looking for it, but then it’s gone in a flash.
“Why would she lie about this?” my mother asks, shaking her head impatiently.
“Because she’s a narcissist! Literally. She has a personality disorder and she has to lie to keep the facade up—”
“Not this again, darling.” My mom sighs. “She’s said sorry—”
Sam lets out an exasperated tsst sound from behind me.
“Mom!” I flop my head backward and stare at the ceiling for a second. “You just found out that you sent me away as a child for absolutely no reason. You changed the trajectory of my whole life because you thought I fucked Beckett willingly. And you—all of you—” I clock Tennyson and Maryanne—“have held that over my head for ten years. And you found out—what—an hour ago that it was a lie, and you want me to forgive Maryanne—who knowingly perpetuated the lie— now ?”
I shake my head at her.
“Mom, even if what’s she’s saying is true—which, I can’t reiterate this enough, it’s not. But even if it was true, even if she was scared of Becks or whatever the fuck her story is—” Maryanne’s jaw goes tight. “She didn’t have to perpetuate that I was a slut. Why didn’t she tell you the night you saw? Why has she never come clean all these years later? If Beckett was such a legitimate threat to her—”
Tennyson shifts on his feet, eyes low, jaw jutted forward. I can tell he’s been wondering the same things.
“Why has Maryanne still been his friend all these years?” I ask, eyebrows up.
My mom starts shaking her head. “Your sister’s just gracious,” she starts, and I let out a dry laugh.
“Get the fuck out of here.” I swat my hand at her and turn on my heel. “I’m going to bed.”
“We’re not finished talking about this!” my mother yells after me.
I turn around from the steps and stare back at her. “That’s fine, because we’re not talking about this—we’re lying about it.”
I walk up the stairs and Sam’s behind me. He moves quietly but stays close, and I get the distinct feeling that maybe he is the adult version of a nightlight. At least, that’s what he’s becoming to me.
We get to our narrow corridor, and I turn to look up at him.
“It was your sister,” he says, nodding a few times, eyes pinched in realization. “She’s why you studied what you study.”
I flash him a tiny smile. “Yep.”
I loved her so much. I always did. How little sisters esteem their big ones—that was me. That first time she walked in on what was happening with me and Beckett, it was so hard for me to comprehend that how it appeared to be was how it actually was. Because I wanted her to be fearful, I wanted her to be sad, I wanted her to be anything other than opportunistic—and at the time, I didn’t know how to do any of the things I do, but once I knew I was interested in psychology, it didn’t take me long. Words like sociopath, psychopath, narcissist—they’re thrown around in people’s everyday vernacular, and way too casually at that. But once I knew what they all were, I realized what my sister was, and what it meant in the context of what she did.
I give Sam a helpless shrug. I think it could have been easier to spot, too—Maryanne’s narcissism—if my family looked different than it does. If Oliver being gay didn’t automatically make him their challenging child, and me by association—if their affections were more evenly spread amongst us, maybe they would have seen it, but they didn’t because they don’t love us the same.
Sam Penny’s brows lower. “How many times did it happen?”
I give him a tight smile and a small shrug. “I stopped counting after ten.”
Sam hangs his head, fists balled, and then he peers up again. “Are you okay?” He nods back toward my family.
“Yeah.” I swat my hand. “That was regular.”
“Nothing about that was regular. This night was…” He trails off, shaking his head at the words he can’t find. “Fucked up.”
I tilt my head, curiously—cautiously, even. “All of it?”
He nods, and his mouth twitches with a smile. “So about that kiss…”
Sam takes a deep breath, and for a second my heart plummets like it’s gone over the bend on a roller coaster.
I ask him the worst question ever uttered in the history of mankind: “Are you going to take it back?”
“No.” He sniffs a laugh and takes me by the waist. “I’m going to do it again.”