Chapter 18
Thanksgiving used to be my third-favorite holiday. My birthday being the first and Christmas being the second. But today,
the last thing I want to do is go back to Cedar Falls to make small talk with the family when all I really want is to sit
alone in my room and order takeout. Adrienne went home on Monday, but I still had class so I couldn’t trap her in the car
for an hour for an interrogation. I wonder if she did it on purpose.
The whole way home I practice smiling in the mirror, making sure it looks genuine and real. I rehearse the lines I’ll say
to my family at dinner.
“School is great! I can’t believe I only have a semester left!
“I don’t have a job lined up yet, but I have some promising interviews scheduled!
“Yes, I am still good friends with Dani and Annica. They’re doing great; they say hi!
“I only look thin, frail, and lifeless because I’m being set up to go to prison forever and my life is crumbling around me!”
When my mom opens the door to see me standing there alone her face falls. “Where’s Asher?” She looks past me like maybe he’s still getting out of the car.
“He has a family to spend the holidays with too, Mother.”
“Oh.” She frowns and looks me up and down. “Really, Sloane? You look like you just got out of bed.”
I roll my eyes, walking past her into the mudroom. “That’s because I did.”
“I just can’t believe you couldn’t have at least brushed your hair. This is a holiday after all,” she says, following behind
me, before her whole demeanor changes as we walk out into the kitchen, where all of Don’s family is seated around the table.
“Look who’s here!” she says excitedly, like she wasn’t just berating me for how I look.
All my step-relatives get up to hug me and kiss me on the cheek, an Italian custom I had to quickly get used to. Lots of hugging
and kissing. Adrienne is at the end of the table with a boy I don’t recognize. She gives me a wide grin when we make eye contact
and waves me over to her. Quite excited for someone who has spent the past three weeks avoiding me. Claire is at the kids
table in the living room with Sofie, Vinnie, and some of our other younger cousins so I take my seat next to Adrienne and
she introduces me to her supposed boyfriend, Paul.
“So nice to meet you, Paul. I feel like Adrienne is always up at Ivy Gate. I never even see her anymore. Like entire weekends,
sometimes during the week. She must really like you.”
Paul laughs nervously, glancing at Adrienne with a look that I swear is confusion. He must not see her that often, then. Because
she’s there seeing someone else.
“Well, I’m not always with Paul,” she says. “I have class, and I work at that boutique downtown. Just busy.”
“Right, busy.”
Adrienne only shrugs and goes back to eating. But I hope she knows I’m onto her.
The dinner drags on, and I find myself stuck making small talk with the rest of the family until I can leave. I even get to
use some of my rehearsed lines. When Claire leaves with her boyfriend to go to his family’s house, and Adrienne starts retelling
about her summer in New York, I decide it’s time to go. I told our dad I would stop by his house before going back to school
and I plan on making that visit even shorter than this one. We only ever see him on holidays with his new family, and usually
Claire and I just sit in silence while his wife, Eve, talks about her kids’ accomplishments and our dad nods along, just as
thrilled with these kids who aren’t even his. While his own are sitting right in front of him. Today I’ll endure it alone,
since Claire is otherwise occupied, and it makes me wish I actually was dating Asher so I’d also have an excuse to go somewhere
else.
Their white-picket-fence house smells like pumpkin pie and nutmeg when I walk in. Small kids I don’t recognize run around
the foyer playing a game. Must be Eve’s side of the family.
“Hey, Sloane,” Hallie, my stepsister and Eve’s high-school-aged daughter, greets me from the kitchen counter as I make my
way in. I like Hallie; she reminds me of myself when I was her age. Her younger brother, Cameron, sits on the kitchen stool
across from her eating dessert. He looks over at me with whipped cream smeared in the corners of his mouth and gives me a
nod.
“Hey, guys,” I say.
“Your dad is in the living room,” Hallie says, setting up her phone for a TikTok.
I walk over to the counter where bottles of wine sit half full and pour myself a hefty glass before going into the living
room with the other adults. My dad smiles and stands to hug me when I walk in. He’s tall and thin and has always looked young
for his age. Once when I was in high school someone mistook him for my boyfriend at a carnival. We were both mortified, though
I think he secretly liked that someone thought he was that young.
“Where’s your sister?” he asks.
“Oh, she’s with her boyfriend. She told me to tell you she’s sorry that she couldn’t make it.”
He gives me a confused look. “Boyfriend? Since when?”
“Since like almost a year now.” I say it with an edge in my voice because he would know that if he bothered to show up. “They
were homecoming king and queen this year.”
“Oh, right, yes, I texted her congratulations.”
I turn to go to the couch, mumbling under my breath, “An in-person one would’ve been better.”
I go to sit, but not before Eve comes from around the corner, rushing toward me. “Oh no, sweetie, no red wine on the couch,
please!” I pause mid-sit and look around at her relatives who are sitting on the white couch with red wine. I almost think
she’s joking, but she continues, “That’s just such a full glass is all.” I blink at her as I lower myself onto the hardwood
floor and take a long sip.
“You guys remember my daughter Sloane?” my dad says to the company on the couch. I know that they’re Eve’s family and I definitely saw them at their wedding and maybe a time or two after that, but I can’t name a single one of them.
“Oh yes, of course,” a lady who looks a lot like Eve says. “You’re the one that goes to Pembroke, right?”
I stop sipping to reply. “Yep.”
“Do you like it there? That’s where my son wants to go in the fall.”
Next fall I will no longer be a student there, and that’s another kind of sadness I’m not ready for. “Yes, I like it.”
“A lot of partying,” Eve says to the other woman with a hand covering her mouth from me, like I wasn’t supposed to hear it,
even though she said it loud enough for even Hallie to hear in the kitchen.
“I’ve heard that,” says an older man standing by the fireplace.
“Poor Sloane had an incident with it last spring, called us in the middle of night because she got arrested.” Eve frowns and
the others gasp.
I give her an incredulous look. “Actually, I called my dad, not you.” The room falls quiet. And it’s true, I called him first.
I thought maybe, just maybe, he might care enough to help me. But he only sighed, the long pause on the line dragging on and
on, before telling me to call my mom. I wonder what he’d do if Hallie called him from jail. Would he drop everything to go
and get her?
“I don’t think this is an appropriate time to really discuss it, Sloane,” my dad tries to cut in.
“Your wife brought it up!”
Eve throws up her hands in defense. “I was only trying to warn Collette of how dangerous it can be.”
“Well, please, let me chime in, then.” I look at the wide-eyed woman who must be Collette.
“Not only is there excessive drinking, but the teachers sleep with their students, and just last month a kid died at a secret underground party by having a sword shoved through him. But you should totally send your son—he’ll have a blast.” I chug the rest of the wine and go to grab my keys from the kitchen island.
“Sloane!” My dad follows after me. “You are not going to just leave after chugging that!”
“Don’t worry,” I say, slipping on my shoes, “if I get arrested again, I’ll call my mom.” I slam the front door shut behind
me, and he doesn’t follow. Sometimes I wonder if I should write him a eulogy, but I think I’d need a bigger journal for that.
It’s late by the time I get back to Pembroke, and the route to get to my apartment from the highway always takes me past College
Street, where the boys live. I almost miss the light on in the attic bedroom as I drive by.
Asher is home.
Don’t do it, Sloane, don’t do it.
I stop my car, put it in reverse, and turn down their street. I guess I’m doing it, if only out of curiosity. For once the
front door is locked and I feel like this is a sign from the universe that I should just go back to my own apartment, but
I knock anyway. Asher answers the door in plaid pajama pants and a sweatshirt, his hair messy and his eyes sleepy.
I realize I don’t have anything to say. I don’t even know why I stopped by. “I saw your light on. I just thought I’d come
say hey . . .”
He steps aside and I walk into the otherwise empty house, no other boys in sight. “Why are you not with your family?” he asks.
“Why aren’t you?”
“Touché.”
I follow him up to his room. “I was there for a while at my mom’s, then I went to my dad’s. And at the end of the day I just
realized I wanted to be alone, I guess.”
“Oh, should I leave?” he jokes. “So you can be alone?”
What the hell am I doing? What the hell am I doing? “I should probably leave. I don’t even know why I stopped over.” I turn to go.
“So what do you want to drink?” he asks, walking over to the small cart by his dresser. “I have scotch or scotch.”
I turn back around and sigh. “I guess scotch.”
Asher puts a movie on and I sit on his bed with a glass of scotch. By far the weirdest Thanksgiving I have ever had.
“My dad is probably at some casino in Vegas, and my sister is with her boyfriend’s family,” he says finally.
I cough after sipping the drink he gave me. I’ve never had scotch and I don’t think I ever will again. The liquid settles
in my stomach with a familiar burn. “Where’s your mom?”
“She’s not around.” He swirls the drink in his glass.