The Backup Girlfriend (Grove Valley High Book 2) Page 23

  “Dad, you are so out of line!” Ellie tells him. “Don’t speak to her like that, or to Mom. This is completely unacceptable.”

  “Oh, stop it. Why are you even here? Eric hasn’t been returning my calls. Make yourself useful and go home and talk to him about the local elections next month for me. I want McGarretty in.”

  Ellie shakes her head in disgust and turns to me. “Are you okay?”

  No. No, I’m not.

  My dad’s phone starts ringing from its spot on the table between him and my mom. She glances over at it, and something changes on her face.

  My dad looks down and goes to pick it up, but my mom reaches out and grabs it first, pulling it out of his reach. “No,” she says firmly. “Not right now. Not when we’re having a family meal.”

  My dad rolls his eyes and holds out his hand.

  “No.” My mom’s voice breaks and she shakes her head. “You are not leaving this table to talk to her. Not right now.”

  “Give me the phone.” My dad’s voice is calm and eerily quiet, and I watch in amazement as the resolve on my mom’s face slowly disappears. Eventually she hands the phone to him as it starts ringing again.

  My dad stands swiftly, swiping the screen to answer. “Hello, Miranda? Hi, darling. How are you?”

  I stare after him in amazement. He’s calling someone darling?

  “Who’s Miranda?” I ask immediately, turning to my mom. “Who is she? And why is he calling her darling?”

  My mom’s face has turned to stone, and she slowly stands from her seat, pushes her chair back in, and then lifts up her wine glass. “You father has been very stressed lately. He has a lot of business deals that are being made, and he’s not himself.” Her gaze shifts to Brett—Brett, who I’d forgotten was even here. “You shouldn’t have invited him. He only exacerbated the situation.” Then she turns and leaves without another word.

  My eyes find Ellie. “Who is this Miranda woman?”

  She bites her lip, and I can see it in her face, what she knows but won’t tell me.

  “Ellie?”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  “Ellie! Tell me.”

  “Abs, it’s okay.”

  “Who is it?!”

  “She’s his mistress,” she says quietly. “I’m sorry, Abs. I didn’t want you to find out.”

  The first of my tears fall down my face. To be honest, I’m surprised it’s taken me this long to cry. “His what? He’s seeing someone behind Mom’s back?”

  She scoffs. “This is his latest one, yeah.”

  There’ve been others?

  “This one has seemed to stick. I think it’s been a couple of years.”

  I just stare at her, tears dripping down my face.

  How can she still be with him? How can she put up with this? How can she be teaching her children that this sort of behavior is okay?

  A hand is placed on my shoulder, and even though it’s gentle and I know it can only be Brett, I still jump out of my skin.

  “Abigail, I’m sorry—”

  “Please, can you go,” I interrupt, wiping at my face to get rid of the tears that won’t stop falling. I can’t even bear to look at him I’m so embarrassed. “Please go home.”

  He doesn’t move for at least a minute, but when I still don’t look at him, he eventually stands, quietly pushing his chair back under the table before walking behind me toward the front door.

  I still don’t look up, but I can feel his presence in the room.

  “I’ll be around all night if you want to talk.”

  I shake my head, eyes still focused on the table in front of me. I’m not going to want to talk about this. I’m not going to want to remember why I knew it wasn’t a good idea for Brett to meet my parents, or how they managed to fail to meet even my low expectations.

  “Are you okay?” I turn my head and see Ellie standing in the doorway.

  I shrug, because honestly, I’m not sure I am. She sighs and comes to sit on the bed next to where I’m lying down, leans against the headboard, and pulls my head into her lap, stroking my hair through her fingers.

  I close my eyes at the comforting touch, but it doesn’t stop the tears from leaking out through the sides. “Shush,” she soothes. “It’s okay.”

  “I just don’t get why she doesn’t leave him,” I say quietly. I’ve never uttered those words before, but it’s what I’ve wondered ever since I was eleven years old and I saw him hit her.

  “She doesn’t want to.”

  “But why?”

  My sister is silent for a long time, and when I do open my eyes and twist to face her, she looks sad—really sad. “I think for Mom, it’s worth it.”

  “What is?”

  “This lifestyle he gives her. The money she has, the status. I think she knows if she left him, she’d lose a lot of what is most important to her.”

  “But he hit her.” More tears fall as I remember that day all those years ago: how they were shouting at each other downstairs, how it wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. I wanted a drink so I snuck downstairs, thinking they wouldn’t see me, and I saw him raise his hand to her then do it again and again.

  Everything changed after that for me.

  “She swears it was only that one time.”

  “Do you believe her?”

  Ellie shrugs. “I really want to.” She pauses. “I think Dad does love her in his own way.”

  “Then why does he act like he does when he comes home? And why is he having an affair?”

  “That won’t last. He’s had one before.”

  I gape at her. “How do you know all this?”

  “You were too young to know.”

  I sit up and turn to face her. “But you did?”

  “Yes. I found out when I was in high school.”

  “Did Mom know?”

  “I tried to tell her once and she just cut me off, wouldn’t let me say the words. Looking back, I think she already knew about it, but she didn’t want me to say it because that would make it real and she’d be expected to do something about it. Anyway, it ended.”

  “But Dad—”

  “They have a fucked-up relationship, Abs, no doubt about it, and Mom has always given Dad the power in their relationship. He has the money and the income, and I think that’s what Mom cares about. To her, his affairs and his temper are worth putting up with.”

  “Even when she never knows how he’s going to behave?”

  “Even then.”

  “But that’s so sad.”

  “I know.”

  We stare at each other, and I start to cry again because I hate that she’s like this, hate that she cares so much about money that she’s willing to accept the way he treats her.

  “I mean, she wasn’t even that poor, was she?” I try to think of my grandparents’ house growing up. Yeah, it was small and kind of old-fashioned, but it was warm and happy and full of love.

  “She wasn’t rich, but I think they struggled at times. I don’t know. Sometimes I think she thinks she owes Dad because he took her away from a lifestyle she didn’t want.”

  I don’t know what to say to that. What can you say when you love your mother but hate, hate how fickle and pathetic she’s become.

  “Why doesn’t he leave her? He’s obviously not happy.”

  She shrugs. “I guess he has his reasons.” She smiles wryly. “Knowing Mom, she probably has an iron-clad pre-nup that he doesn’t want to deal with.”

  That sounds about right.

  “She keeps going on about my weight,” I mutter, “but I swear I’ve lost the extra pounds.”

  She grimaces. “I know you have, Abs. Don’t listen to her. She puts all her value in the way she looks and she expects us to do the same, but it’s not healthy. It’s not the way to be.”

  “She always talks about Chase to me,” I whisper. “She thinks I’m a failure because he doesn’t want me anymore.” More tears slide down my face. “She thinks I screwed it up.”


  My sister scowls. “You’re eighteen years old, Abigail, and Chase was your first love, but there will be others, and you’ll find someone who makes you even happier than you were when you were with him. You’ll meet someone who makes you forget Chase’s name.”

  “All she cares about is money and status.”

  “I know,” Ellie says quietly. She stops stroking my hair. “What about Brett?”

  “What about him?”

  A smile crosses over her face. “You tell me.”

  “We’re just friends, kind of…if even that.”

  “Oh really?”

  “No, seriously, we are. He’s been helping me study.”

  “It didn’t sound like he was just your tutor when you were talking about him to Dad.”

  “Well, he’s cool—really cool—but he’s into Sasha and I’m supposed to set them up.”

  She doesn’t look convinced.

  “Besides, he’s from Hammerton. Mom would kill me.”

  She doesn’t say anything to that, just sort of stares into space, and I think the conversation is over. But, after what feels like a long time, she turns back to me. “The bartender from Eric’s benefit…his name is Blake Reynolds.”

  I pause. Something about the way she says his name, soft and carefully, would tell me this is an important story even if I hadn’t seen them that night.

  She smiles at me. “You don’t have to pretend, Abs. I know you saw what a wreck I was when I saw him.”

  I nod, not wanting to say anything that might stop her from sharing this.

  “We went to high school together. That was the first time I’ve seen him since graduation.”

  She hesitates.

  “I was in love with him. Crazy, stupid in love with him.”

  Okay, now I’m confused. “Weren’t you with Liam Brent in high school?” I ask, naming the guy who used to come drive me around in his truck and who I used to watch in soccer games in our old town. I think he’s in business school now, and I’m pretty sure he and Ellie still keep in touch.

  She smirks. “Yeah, all through sophomore and junior year and then into senior year.” She shrugs. “And then I started talking to Blake one day in study hall, by accident, really, and everything changed.”

  What the hell? I don’t remember any of this. I mean, there’s no reason why I really should—I was only a kid when all this was happening—but I don’t ever remember him coming around.

  “You left Liam for Blake?”

  She laughs at my scandalized tone. “I guess so, although I don’t think Liam was all that heartbroken. I think we’d become friends. There was no spark, at least not by the end.”

  “Was Blake on the soccer team too?”

  She rolls her eyes at that. “You and this whole jock, popularity thing. No, he wasn’t. He was just…normal.”

  I blush slightly at that because she’s right. That’s how I’ve lived through high school, always trying to strive for perfection and only think about those people who are popular, trying my hardest to be one of them. It doesn’t actually surprise me that Ellie doesn’t care about this. Naturally popular people never do; people like Chase and Sophie who it just comes to naturally—they never have to think about it. People like me and Sarah have to work at it, have to revolve all our decisions around it.

  And where has it ever gotten me? It certainly hasn’t made me happy.

  “I really loved him,” Ellie tells me quietly. “I’d never, ever felt like that before.” She gives me a quick smile. “I would have done anything,” she told me, “anything he wanted, and he was the same. I remember thinking that any moment I wasn’t with him was a complete waste.”

  “What happened?”

  Tears fill her eyes, just briefly, before she bites down on her lip, takes a couple of deep breaths, and pulls herself together. “I introduced him to Mom, and she wasn’t impressed. He’s not rich or anything, his family members are waitresses and such, working-class people, and that wasn’t good enough for Mom. I let her get into my head and started thinking this was just a passing fling. I let myself believe those feelings we had for each other weren’t special and I could find it with somebody else.”

  I don’t know what to say as the emotion passes over my sister’s face.

  “I guess I broke my own heart, really. I just walked away.”

  A single tear slides down her cheek.

  “I knew it was a mistake, almost instantly. I missed him so much it hurt, but we moved and I was too ashamed to get back in touch with him. When I finally did decide to contact him, I saw online that he was dating someone…” She sighs. “I told myself I didn’t want to mess with his life, but really I was being a coward and didn’t have the guts to face him after the way I behaved.”

  She’s lost in her memories for a couple of seconds, her face stricken, before she pulls herself together.

  “And then I was introduced to Eric a couple of years later, and it’s really important for you to know that I do love Eric. I know he can be intense and he’s really driven, but he loves me and little Eric, and he’ll give me the best life.”

  “But it’s not the same?” My voice is barely a whisper.

  The tears that slide down her face are all the answer I need. She’s not going to say the words. I know that. She’s not going to betray her husband by saying the words out loud, but the look on her face is all the statement I need.

  “I spoke to him,” I tell her earnestly. “He works at a garage fixing cars.”

  She smiles at that, like it doesn’t surprise her.

  “He’s only working at the country club so he can earn enough money to start his own garage. He wants to franchise it and set up shops all over the country.”

  “He’ll do it too. He has the best work ethic. There’s no way he won’t be a huge success.”

  It just makes me want to burst into tears if she knows that now with the benefit of hindsight but made a decision at eighteen that she might live to regret.

  “I’m sorry, Ells.”

  She shakes her head, wiping at her face and sitting up straighter, and gently moves my head from her lap before shifting to the edge of the bed with her feet on the floor. She takes a couple of deep breaths, composing herself before she stands, turns, and gives me a big smile.

  Conversation over.

  I watch at she walks toward my door. She opens it and goes to step through it before thinking twice, closing it, and turning back to me.

  “Do me a favor, Abs?”

  I nod. The way I feel about my sister right now and the heartbreak she’s been through I’d promise her just about anything right now.

  “Don’t do what I did. Don’t listen to me or Mom or anyone else about who you should be and what you should do about your life. Do what makes you happy. You do you.” She pauses, looking at me, really looking at me. “Do you promise me, Abs?”

  “I will.”

  “Good. I’m proud of you and I love you.”

  “I love you too.”

  She nods once then walks out of my room, closing the door behind her and leaving me feeling sad beyond words for my big sister and what she’s been through. I meant it when I promised her.

  You do you.

  I’ll try my very best.

  28

  I’ve successfully managed to make it from the student parking lot to the school building without engaging with anyone. I have no intention of speaking to anyone until I absolutely have to.

  After Friday night, I’m still in a foul mood.

  I haven’t been able to stop playing what my dad said at the dinner table over and over again in my mind. I went back to Ellie’s house with her on Saturday morning and stayed there for the weekend. I spent most of it trying to study, but I couldn’t really concentrate, and that’s only added to my mood. If my lack of concentration this weekend, one of the last weekends I have to study, affects me graduating, I’ll never, ever forgive him.

  So, yeah, I’m not exactly happy right now.

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nbsp; But it’s more than that—I’m ashamed. Embarrassed. Humiliated. Mortified. You name it, I’m feeling it. I can’t believe Brett saw that scene and knows what my family life is actually like.

  I’m at my locker, switching my textbooks around, replacing the ones I used over the weekend with the ones I’ll need for my first few classes. I hear a shout farther down the hallway followed by a burst of laughter that I’m pretty sure is Aaron, but I don’t turn around to see what’s going on.

  When I say I don’t want to talk to anyone, I mean it.

  Not even my friends.

  I check the time and see that the morning bell for homeroom is still a couple of minutes away, but I decide to head there early to avoid everyone and close my locker. I turn around to walk to my classroom and stop when I see Brett standing a few lockers down, watching me hesitantly.

  My face burns red just at the sight of him.

  I can’t help it after Friday night.

  “Hey,” he says quietly.

  “Hi.”

  He takes a couple of steps toward me until he’s right in front of me, and even though I’m embarrassed to see him, I still can’t help thinking how good-looking he is, how I can’t believe I never noticed him before.

  “I just wanted to—”

  “Can we not talk about Friday?” I interrupt. “I really don’t want to talk about it.”

  “I’m sorry,” he says gently, surprising me. “I kept pushing you to invite me over, kept going on about meeting your dad. I didn’t know…I didn’t know what it would be like.”

  I shrug, still not looking at him directly. “How would you? It’s not your fault.”

  “I didn’t agree with anything your dad said about you, just so you know.”

  I nod, pressing my lips tightly together before breathing in through my nose and out through my mouth in an attempt to keep at bay the tears that feel dangerously close. “He’s not…he’s not always like that.”

  What am I doing? I don’t talk about this. I don’t talk about this with anyone.

  He doesn’t say anything to that, instead standing there patiently waiting for me to continue…or not. I get the impression he would be okay with anything I did right now, whatever worked best for me.