“That’s two out of hundreds! Thousands!”
“I can’t believe you. Do you even hear what you’re saying? Do you even realize how ridiculous this is? It’s not like you’ve been an excellent role model.” I gesture to Tim-Tom sitting on the couch. He’s wearing pajama pants and that’s it. As usual. “Don’t you own any shirts?” I call.
He looks down at his bare chest.
“Don’t talk to Tim like that!”
I decide it’s better to leave than say something I’ll regret. “I gotta go. Sunny’s picking me up.”
“Fine. Go! Leave! Just don’t go getting yourself pregnant and ruin your life like I ruined mine.” She sucks in a breath, clamping her hand over her mouth like she’s trying to push the words back in. “I didn’t mean that, Lily.”
When she reaches out, I step back, away from her touch, her apology. In that moment, she gives credence to all my insecurities—that I’m not enough, that I’ll never be wanted, that I’m not worth the effort to love. Her regret is a mark I can’t erase.
“That’s the unfortunate thing about words, Mom. Once you put them out there, you can’t take them back.”
She tries to grab my wrist as I push past her, but I yank it free.
“I don’t want you to make the same mistake I did.”
“Which mistake is that? The one where you got pregnant, or the one when you decided to keep me?”
“You’re the best mistake I ever made, Lily.”
“But I’m still a mistake.” My phone buzzes in my pocket. I check the message. It’s Sunny. “My ride’s here.”
She doesn’t try to stop me from leaving. Which is good. I’m close to tears, and I hate it when my mother sees me cry.
***
Two hours later, Sunny and I are lying on her bed. We’re halfway through the magnum of white wine we picked up at the store. We’re both tipsy since neither of us are drinkers. We’ve also gotten into her dad’s cookie stash.
Robbie Waters is a chemist. He works for a marijuana lab perfecting strains for medical use. He does a lot of “testing.”
I’ve ugly-cried, and Sunny’s shed sympathy tears. It’s one of the many reasons I love her; she’s the best, best friend in the world. She’ll laugh with me, cry with me, get as angry as she can with me—which isn’t very angry, but the thought is always there.
“Do you want to know what I think you should do?” Sunny asks as she lifts her legs straight up in the air and lets them fall toward her head. Her toes hit the mattress behind her, and her legs are still straight. She’s more flexible than I am, and that’s saying something, because I’m damn flexible. I can practically fold myself in half backwards.
“Take up yoga so I can have super-bendy sex like you and Miller?”
“That’s one thing you should do. Except you can’t have sex with Miller, or me. You can have sex with Randy, though.” She’s definitely drunk.
I smack her ass.
“Ow!” She flips out of her pose and rolls on her side. “I think you should move to Chicago with me.”
“We’ve already talked about this. I don’t have a job there.”
“But it would be so easy for you to get one. Alex says it won’t be a problem to find you a spot as a skating coach, and the money would be way better than here. Plus you get paid in US dollars, not Canadian ones, so if you decided to move back here, your savings would be worth more.”
“I like my job here.” Though I don’t love it like I used to. Lately I like it less and less.
Sunny takes a lock of hair and rubs the end of it over her lips. It’s something she’s always done when she’s thinking, or nervous. She did it a lot at the beginning of her relationship with Miller. I still feel bad about the way I judged him before I knew him. He really is so, so good to her.
“I’m going to say something, and I don’t want you to get mad at me for it, okay?”
I laugh. “I’ll do my best.”
“I know you love working with those girls, but Lily, I don’t know if it’s the best thing for you. Sometimes I think it makes you as sad as it does happy. It’s such a reminder of what you missed out on.”
She’s right. Teaching skating in the same arena where I used to prepare for competitions hurts sometimes. Maybe it’s because I get further and further away from my dream while these girls get closer. “It’s a big decision.”
“I know, but sometimes change is good. I love your mom, and she loves you—despite the things she said—but it’s kinda like me and my mom, you know?”
I nod. I do know. Daisy is loads of fun to be around, but she’s got archaic ideas about how relationships work. It never occurred to her that Sunny would want a career and all the other things women in the twenty-first century strive for.
“At the very least, you should take some time off work and come with me to Chicago over the holidays. See if you like it.”
“I can’t do that.” It’s an automatic response.
“Why not? You’re allowed to take a holiday, Lily, and frankly, you need one. You’ve been working two jobs for the past three years, and until April you were in school full-time as well. You need a break. Miller’s off from the twenty-third to the twenty-eighth. Your girls have a break from skating then anyway, right?”