Page 26 of Unsteady: How to Fail at Flirting

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And I was having the perfect birthday.

But when I look up from the lava cake that I’m too stuffed to eat, I see the look on his face. My heart tells me that’s the face of a man who’s not going anywhere. You thought he flaked out once, but it turned out not to be flaking.

But he will be going back to Charlotte without me. He’ll be just another person I banged one time who knows all my secrets.

At least I know he won’t use them against me, even if this doesn’t go anywhere.

The Abbasid Caliphate: Golden Age of Islam, Scientific Achievement, and Political Fragmentation

The Safavid Dynasty: Persia’s Cultural Renaissance and Military Weakness

The Rise and Fall of the Mughal Empire: India’s Imperial Glory and Decline

The Yuan Dynasty: Mongol Rule Over China, Imperial Expansion, and Fragmentation

“When I was seven years old,” I say, “my dad and mom were killed in a drunk driving accident. My mom’s mom raised me after that. She had chronic pain, so I mostly fended for myself. Her medicine made her sleepy. One day, when I was about ten years old, I got called into the counselor’s office at school. Another lady was there who said she was from child welfare. They informed me that Nana would not be picking me up from school that day. She had been picked up for stealing money out of the cash register at work. Looking back, I think she just needed money for pills. Anyway, that social worker took me to a hotel, and I stayed with her for weeks.”

I’ve been staring at the table this whole time. I look up at Finn.

“Weeks? At a hotel?”

I nod. She was nice enough. She took me to school early in the morning so I could get the free breakfast and lunch. At night, she brought me McDonald’s, and though I got tired of it, I never complained.

“I think they were trying to get Nana to clean up her act so I could go home. But she never did. She overdosed a couple of years later. In the meantime, nobody wanted a 10-year-old foster daughter. Most people want babies. I went from family to family, sometimes staying a week. Sometimes a month. I felt like a burden most of the time. Eventually, I landed in a group home, which sucked. One of my housemates locked me in the attic, and I climbed out the window. They called me Rapunzel after word got out.”

Now, Finn holds my hand instead of vice versa. He gives it a little squeeze. Our lava cakes are untouched.

“You don’t want to hear all this.”

“Believe me, Skylar, I do.”

On a lighter note, I tell him my one saving grace growing up was my best friend, Iris. We were thick as thieves all through elementary school. She would take me home for sleepovers all the time, much to the chagrin of her aunt Patty. But her grandma, MiMi, was wonderful. And the foster families who’d been cajoled to take me in temporarily, they didn’t really care. The more sleepovers I went to, the less they had to feed me.

“I started dating as soon as boys began to notice me. Anyone with a car was good enough. I figured maybe one day I’d find a guy I could run away with. I did do that, more than once. A lot of guys made big promises just so I would give them what they wanted. But in the end, they turned out not to be who they said they were. So I decided from when I was about 18 on, that it was all meaningless.”

I glance up again. “What was meaningless?” Finn asks.

I shrug. “Dating. Romance. Relationships. All men were phonies. All men have ulterior motives. They all say whatever it takes to get what they want. So, I decided I would play the game to my advantage. I would flirt, get what I wanted when I neededit, and move on. I locked up my heart, and no one was going to hurt me ever again.”

Finn gives me another squeeze.

He kindly suggests we take the cakes to go. I agree. Talking about this crap does not help my digestion.

Mercifully, the train makes its slow stop back at the station behind the half-empty ski lodge. Outside, the sun shines down through the fragrant pine trees.

“It’s so pretty here. Pretty soon, the mountain laurels will be blooming. You should make sure to take a hike up here in late May. It’s unreal,” I say.