Page 73 of The Apparent Trap

“You told Georgia about Carmen!” he starts the moment he sees me, storming into my apartment without even a hello. He’s disheveled, stubble strong, wearing the kind of fisherman sweater that people write poems about. “That’s the only thing I specifically—”

He stops. He’s noticed Georgia sitting on my couch.

And she’s noticed him. Her eyes widen, taking him in, confused. It’s like a staring contest where both people eventually realize they should be looking at someone else.

And that someone else is me.

“Why the fuck is Lee Morgan in your apartment, yelling at you about me?” Georgia says right as Lee barks, “Why did you tell Georgia about me and Carmen?”

Georgia’s gaze snaps back to him. “Tell me what about you and Carmen?”

It’s like a Ping-Pong game of eyes bouncing between people. They’re both staring at me again, and I’m tempted to jump out the window.

“I didn’t . . .” I stop. Take a deep breath. I focus on Lee. “The only person connecting you to Carmen right now is yourself. Shouting. In the middle of my living room.”

He purses his lips. “Carmen said Georgia brought up age gaps in relationships in one of her topic segments today. So clearly you told her.”

Shit. I nod, finally understanding the source of this outrage, even though I should’ve seen it a mile away.

“I didn’t tell Georgia . . .” I look over at her, and I can see her mind whirring too. I know I’m going to get a grilling from her later. But that’ll have to wait. I turn back to Lee. “I told Georgia about my dad and Carmen. I told her they were dating. I did not tell her . . . anything else.”

His eyes flick between Georgia and me, like he’s playing Jenga and has suddenly realized the piece he’s pulling out is going to make the game topple and it’s too late to stop it.

“I . . .” He pauses, unsure.

Georgia stands up. “You know what? This sounds like a conversation I shouldn’t be here for.”

I look at her, shocked. When has Georgia ever bowed out of learning something juicy. “What about Never Been Kissed?” I ask, naively hoping that maybe Lee will just evaporate and we can go back to avoiding.

Georgia scoffs. Then she kisses me on the cheek and grabs her purse. “Babe, seems like there are a lot more inappropriate relationships in real life for you to worry about.”

She laughs to herself, clearly amused at dropping a grenade and then popping out as she closes the door behind her. I know I’m going to have to deal with explaining this all to her later—Lee’s made sure of that—but apparently she’s deferring her turn.

The silence of the apartment is deafening as Lee and I stand there, neither moving, no easy responses to the force he just swept into the room with.

“I didn’t tell her,” I finally say, putting my head in my hands.

“You told her some of it,” he retorts.

My eyes snap back to him. The nerve of this man. “I told her about my dad because she rightly guessed I was stressed about something and wouldn’t back off. But I didn’t tell her anything about you.”

“So if it wasn’t a big deal, why didn’t you tell me?”

“Not everything is your business,” I snap back, cringing a little since I know that’s probably unfair. But he’s shown up at my apartment after we did . . . whatever we did . . . in Sweden, and he’s accusing me of something?

“You know that’s bullshit,” he says, trying to assert calm when he’s clearly anything but.

“I know that?”

“I have no idea what you told her. I told you so much in confidence. I’ve told you . . .” He pauses, the calm slipping. I know what’s contained in those pauses, and it presses on all the bruises on my heart, sharp and deep. I’m about to reach out to him, say something, apologize, even if it’s not quite fair.

But his expression changes. And I can see the moment he decides that anger is easier than hurt. “I should’ve known this wasn’t that serious for you,” he says, steel now an added edge to his voice. “What are the actual stakes here for you? Like, oh no, your dad just gets to be happy with someone younger. Who cares? He’s happy. This won’t actually fuck up his life the way it would Carmen’s.”

My mouth drops. I knew he’d come in hot, but this is completely unfair. And it makes all that tenderness toward him burn up. “You have no idea what you’re talking about,” I spit out, my words wobbling more than I’d like. “I had to watch my dad suffer day in and day out when he lost my mom. I had to watch him claw back against misery for my sake, and I don’t want that for him again. You think there’s no stakes?”

“You just don’t want to lose the only person you talk to other than Georgia.”

The words slap me, and it makes something in me snap. “Don’t you get that I already lost him?” I shout, everything I’ve been keeping tamped down since we got back from Sweden—or maybe the last seventeen years—suddenly bubbling over. “That some piece of him died with her, and I’ve been desperate to keep the rest of him with me? To keep as much of us the same so I wouldn’t lose him all the way too? What are the fucking stakes for me? How about not being effectively an orphan when my dad gets walloped twice and maybe never gets back up? How about protecting the last piece I have of my life before my mom died?”