Page 93 of Edged
“What do you mean he’s here?” I brushed past her legs and sat on the coffee table, leaving her facing me from one side and Frankie on the other. Frankie’s eyes had gone wide, his attention narrowed onto my silent and dark cell phone beside his feet.
“I mean Archie Davidson showed up on my porch after work with a whole lot of very interesting things to say about you, little brother.”
In that moment, it was impossible to not think that there had to be an easier way. If I would have just agreed with Archie when he talked about wanting to be honest with my sister, for one. We could have done it together, presenting a united front, our hands joined. With that thought, I looked down at my palm, sweaty and pale white with half-moon divots gouged into the surface.
I’d done that.
I’d done all of this.
“Like what?” I managed to ask.
“What do you think, Owen?”
“I never meant to lie to you, Mandy.”
“Wrong.” She cut me off, slashing her hand through the air and leaning forward so her face was only inches away from mine. “You didn’t just mean to do it, you planned to do it. And you planned it more than once.”
My eyes were wet with tears and my throat was parched. I wasn’t entirely convinced I wasn’t on the cusp of a heart attack.
“It wasn’t like that.”
“No?”
I shook my head.
“Do you think I’m a child, Owen? Like I’m some stupid little girl who can’t handle the truth about her college boyfriend taking her little brother to bed?”
“Amanda.”
“He didn’t tell me about it,” she said, shaking her head like she was disgusted with me. “Or rather, he did. But I already knew about it.”
Every word out of my sister’s mouth was the swing of a sledgehammer against the foundation I’d built my life on. I’d built my life on a lie, though. My relationship with her too. I’d dedicated so much to her because of what I’d done and the future I’d stolen from her. With all of that crumbling, what did I have?
“How did you know?”
“I have ears, Owen. And a college degree. I’m not an idiot.”
“Why…why didn’t you say anything?”
A flash of undeserved resentment flared up the base of my spine and directed at my sister for not speaking up sooner. She had to know that I’d acted how I did, that I’d done the things I’d done to pay her back for the biggest mistake of my life. And she had just let me. She had willingly and actively taken advantage of my guilt over sleeping with Archie for the first time.
“Archie asked me the same thing.” She looked up at me with a sad smile, then she shrugged. “It was embarrassing.”
“And you just…you let me live the last ten years like you didn’t know about what happened between us?”
“At the time, I didn’t think bringing it out into the open would have been better for either of us. For any of us. And I got over him, Owen. I thought you would have too” Mandy twirled a loose curl around the tip of her finger before letting it fall. She leaned back against the couch, some of the earlier anger going with her and her mouth pulled down into a frown. “None of us did the right thing, Owen. But that doesn’t mean we can’t start.”
I scrubbed a hand down my face and Frankie kicked me in the hip.
“I know. You’re right.”
“I know I am,” she answered with a quiet laugh. “But what does the right thing look like to you?”
“It looks like I don’t lie to you anymore.”
“That’s a good start. So, tell me the truth.”
Next to her, Frankie choked, a laugh catching in the back of his throat. Mandy and I both shot him a sharp glare and he waved one of his hands in apology, even as he kept sputtering and spitting up everywhere.
