Friend Is a Four Letter Word Page 4

  I feel like all my bones have melted. I feel like a helium balloon, unmoored and floating above everything. I knew I let my mother down. I knew I hurt her. I had no idea just how much. I raise my fist to my mouth, pressing my knuckles to my lips to stifle back the sobs.

  Dad nods, smoothing a hand over her hair. “I know. I know our reasons for not telling her, Trish.”

  I reach a shaky hand down to my own arm and pinch it hard to see if I can feel it.

  “Exactly. If we accept that that is just the way she is going to be, that’s the same as telling her she came from a drug addict mother and a felon father, David. I’m not sentencing her to a life of knowing that,” she growls, reminding me of a lioness defending her cub. “We’ll get through this. We will.” She keeps repeating it like a mantra while Dad smooths her hair.

  I shake my head, hard, willing myself to wake up from this insane dream.

  But the clouds don’t part and, as my parents cling to each other and comfort one another, I know that my plan—what I came down here to tell them—is just as strong now as it was ten minutes ago.

  My father said I was selfish. I’m not.

  I know I’m probably in shock, probably not able to process, but I’m not the one who’s hurting here. I’m not the one who’s worried and worked and prayed for another person so tirelessly.

  They’ve kept this from me for a reason, and I’m not willing to let them down. I don’t want to succumb to a life like the parents they are describing.

  My parents.

  My parents?

  I sit up straight on the steps.

  My parents are David and Patricia Gillan, the people who have loved me and cared for me since I was born.

  They have never once treated me like I was anything but their daughter, never once lashed out at me like I really had the blood of drug addicts flowing through my veins, I wasn’t going to become that person they were so afraid for me to be now.

  I can’t make sense of all of it right at this moment, but I know one thing: my resolve is strong.

  If they know that I know, they will have no choice but to change the way they treat me—I’ll no longer be their daughter. Not in the way I always have been. I will be their adopted daughter. The one who has problems because it’s who I am, twisted in my DNA and building in every chromosome.

  I will not become that person. Not now, not ever.

  I’ll help protect their secret. Lock it away in my brain. No one ever needs to know. I am Shayna Gillan. Daughter of Pastor and Mrs. Gillan.

  Period.

  “Mom? Dad? Are you guys awake?” I say, my voice small.

  I watch their necks straighten as they snap to attention. Mom uses the back of her wrist to wipe the tears from under her eyes, and Dad clutches her hand. They exchange a quick, panicked glance.

  “Merry Christmas,” I say, rubbing at my eyes like I’ve just woken up and haven’t heard anything. I did the same thing when I was six and saw them putting gifts under the tree. I let them think I still believed in Santa for four more years.

  Visible relief washes over both of them.

  “Merry Christmas, honey,” Mom says, her smile warm and happy. She glances at my dad, and her look says, See! There’s our girl. One little bump wasn’t worth all that worry. She’s still our angel.

  I give them both my biggest smile and reach out to hug them both, allowing the three-person group hug to wash over me. I’m the good daughter they both raised with so much love and hope.

  New, determined, good-girl Shayna starts now.

  Seven months. That’s how long I’ve been in this… relationship, for lack of a better word.

  You know, if I were the type of girl that kept track of those types of things, that is.

  It’s not like I know how long we’ve been dating because it’s been seven months of bliss and I cherished each and every day. It’s not like I’ve been counting down, excited at the prospect of ending up in this swanky restaurant, hoping that he remembers what a special day this is, too.

  Or better, that he has some expensive gift tucked away in his crisp, well-tailored pants.

  Nope. I know this is my seven month anniversary because it was a reminder from my mother before I left this evening.

  “Shayna, that boy may have something up his sleeve for tonight, and you’d better be ready for it!” she’d said.

  “Like what? Bowling instead of fencing?” I asked with a sigh I quickly disguised. Operation Perfect Daughter was stretching into another grueling month. I knew I was doing it for all the best, noblest reasons, but I sometimes doubted Navy Seals went through this kind of endurance testing.

  Mom pulled the pin from my hair, letting the long blonde strands fall loose. “You look better with your hair down. And no. Tonight is your anniversary, or did you forget?” She fluffed my hair with her fingers and looked at me in that dreamy way that let me know she wouldn’t really be listening to anything I said.

  “Anniversary of what? Selling my soul?” I griped. I would have felt guilty if she looked crushed, but Mom didn’t even flinch. In fact, she smiled like it was some kind of funny joke.

  “No, of dating Nolan,” Mom scoffed, shaking her head and tugging playfully on my hair.

  “Oh, so sort of the same thing,” I mumbled. No matter how much my parents have tried to change me, the one thing they haven’t been able to work the kinks out of my snark.

  “Don’t mumble, Shayna,” my mother sing-songed. “And put on a different dress. This could be a special night, and you’ll want to remember it as such. That dress won’t do.” She picked at the skirt of my perfectly fine floral print sundress and frowned.

  My mom’s presence always made me feel like I was living in a different century.

  “How long has it been?” I asked, swirling the brush into my bronzer and not meeting Mom’s stare.

  “You mean you don’t know?” Mom looked at me in the mirror, her eyes trying to search mine so she could gauge whether or not I was kidding.

  “Can’t say that I do,” I said evenly. I really had no idea. It hasn’t been a whirlwind romance. In fact, it was sort of been the opposite.

  My mom sighed dramatically and shook her head like she was going to chalk it all up to me being so twitter pated in love or something. “Seven months. In my day, seven months was definitely long enough to hope for a… proposal.” She waggled her eyebrows suggestively, and I put on way too much makeup, trying to concentrate on not deliberately gouging my eyes out.

  Perfect daughters do not use their makeup tools to show how their spirits are being crushed.

  My parent’s set me up with Nolan to help curb my wild behavior, but if I scored a ring out of it, that’d just a bonus for them. A big bonus. They’d finally feel like they could ease up on me a little. That I’d be safe.

  I tried to keep my breaths even, to not let on that the thought of a proposal made me want to hurl into my vanity drawer.

  The only thing that calmed me enough to walk out the door was the sight of my phone illuminating next to my makeup bag. A text from Carter, just saying hi.

  I’d found his number in my car on Christmas morning. He’d left it with a note saying to call anytime. We may not have properly said goodbye on that night months ago, but we started texting back and forth often. We never said much, just a joke, a good morning, a picture of the ocean while he rested on the beach next to his surfboard.

  And those things were enough to make me smile.

  To make me feel a little less alone in this crazy charade I was living.

  When I was thirteen, my parents made me do cotillion.

  I know it’s old school, but they thought it would give me the foundation to be a good Southern girl through and through—because that was their biggest goal as parents. To raise a proper Southern girl with poise and manners. Someone they could present to their massive church as an example of what a life with God could bring you.

  They said cotillion would be a night I’d never forget. I had to
do it all, the manners classes, the ballroom dancing, interview classes, the big ass dress. Charles Thompson escorted me, and he had warts all over his hands. That’s the most prominent detail of that so-called unforgettable night. Because afterward my parents allowed me to go to a get-together with the other debutantes and their chaperones, which was where Charles’s twin brother, Kevin, gave me my first joint.

  I didn’t even really like the taste, and the buzz was only alright, but what I was instantly hooked on was the high of being able to present one persona to my church elder parents and another to my friends.

  Even if pot was the highlight of my cotillion experience, one thing I do remember from all of those classes is how to eat properly. So I can’t help but cringe as Nolan scratches his fork on his plate, again and again, twisting his spaghetti around the tines. The more he twists, the less pasta there actually is wrapped around it.

  “You may want to use a spoon, too,” I say, holding mine out to him.

  “A spoon?” Nolan looks up like an over-eager puppy about to learn a new trick. He takes the utensil from my hand, but looks confused.

  I tuck back a sigh and explain patiently. “You twist your fork onto the spoon rather than the plate, it makes it a little easier.” I’m blowing his mind with this basic knowledge. “Or, you could use the side of a bowl or something.”

  This is how the majority of our dates go.

  We do something low key like dinner or a movie where our main interaction consists of staring at the screen while we share a tub of buttery popcorn or focusing on our plates of food. Nolan is fairly quiet, and when we do manage some conversation, it usually revolves around pretty boring everyday crap or the occasional lesson in etiquette from me. Which is kind of ironic and ludicrous.

  Or, if we’ve seen every single movie playing—including kiddie animated stuff and cheesy rom-coms, which I hate but put up with—I tag along to the fencing school he attends so I can sit in the corner on my phone and pretend I understand the rules or have any interest while he practices. Every once in a while Nolan lifts his mask and gives me an eager grin as he wipes sweat from his face. I press my lips up in the best smile I can manage, trying to fake the part of being the perfect supportive girlfriend.

  What we never, ever do is talk about anything real or important. As much as thoughts of my adoption race through my brain day and night, I never say a word to Nolan. We don’t drive out to deserted lookouts and talk and kiss under a smattering of stars. He never touches my leg and makes shivers go up and down my spine. He never pierces me with a single look and demands to know what I want. We never unwrap the perfect shiny paper and see what lies underneath.

  We both put on a good front, are perfectly polite and nice to each other, and play the parts we were assigned.

  It’s fine. It’s all part of the plan.

  The one that levels out my life and turns me back into the daughter my parents always imagined they’d end up with.

  The parents introduced me to Nolan at a church New Year’s Day coat drive. His father was the new minister of the other mega church in town, something that would normally drive my father batty—even the Jesus business is cut-throat and Dad always hated when a competing church would get a new—or even worse, younger pastor because that meant his head count might be in jeopardy.

  But he perked up when he learned that the Bryant’s had a son two years older than me, and wasted no time pushing us together when the opportunity presented itself.

  It’s okay, I needed a break from the life I was living. If I didn’t step back, I’d probably end up on some cheesy reality show by now, Rich Girls Rebel or something. Because the truth is, I had no reason to be acting the way I was. I mean, I didn’t have shitty parents like my friend Quinn, or blatant self-esteem issues like Tessa, I was just… bored.

  The thing is, when I came stumbling in last Christmas Eve after Carter dropped me off at home, I wanted to change. I hit my own personal rock bottom. But I guess you really do need to be careful what you wish for, because the changes my life wound up taking were nothing like what I had in mind.

  I keep going back in my head to that moment I tiptoed out to the pool house and raided the liquor cabinet, trying to forget the way my evening ended with Carter. The way he looked at me with sad eyes, like he knew what I was feeling, but couldn’t fix.

  I keep wondering what might have happened if I managed to keep quiet as I made my way into the main house. What could have happened if I didn’t end up falling down in front of Mom and Dad and a pile of their church friends, if my parents never had to put their foot down? If I had never heard the secret they’d kept from me and had my life click together in a way I never imagined possible?

  I have a theory.

  A crazy theory.

  I think I would have gone up to my quiet, cozy room. I think I would have slipped out of my party dress and into my thin cotton nightshirt and shorty shorts. I would have taken a deep breath… and I would have called Carter.

  I was always the kind of girl who got liquid courage after enough to drink, and I think that night I would have wound up talking to him. All night.

  And I think I’m right about it because we wound up doing exactly that a few times since Christmas Eve. It took a couple of weeks for me to get the guts to try texting sober… and a couple more for me to get up the guts to sneak just a little vanilla vodka and call very late and a little tipsy.

  Conversations with Carter have run the range from awkward to hilarious to soul-bearing… and they always feel a little surreal. I turn over the things he’s said to me.

  Stop trying to please everyone else, Shayna. You’re so busy worrying about what other people want for you, you forget how to want for yourself.

  Did I ever tell you your eyes remind me of moonstone? Don’t laugh! I was really into geology when I was a kid, and that was my favorite stone. Yours look like that… and I think a lot about how they looked that night.

  How was my night? Shitty, actually. Until the phone rang, and I saw it was you.

  Sometimes I regret things I did, but mostly I regret what I didn’t do. I’ve got to hang up in a second, but I’m gonna say this now, Shay. Every single day I regret everything I didn’t do with you.

  The Carter I talk to all these stolen nights on the phone, the Carter who texts me at all kinds of weird hours with sweet little words of encouragement is not the same Carter who left me on Christmas Eve. I guess because I know him better… he’s not just a crush or a conquest. He’s a friend. My only friend. And he’s a huge disappointment for me, because I know he can’t be anything more. What we have is all just make believe, just an escape I guess we both need. And that makes me sad. We talk so late at night, in that time when the rest of the world is still asleep, I half feel like what Carter and I have might all be a crazy dream.

  And then I always return to reality. Where what I wanted and cared about was way less important than what my parents wanted for me, what they thought was important. And I had to follow their rules. If I was going to live with them, or have them pay for college, I was going to behave better. They’d approve my friends, they’d know my whereabouts.

  Carter was my one secret, my one way to connect to the version of myself that’d been buried underneath all the rebellious bullshit. The version of myself that wasn’t wrapped in a perfect wrapper that hid every true feeling.

  Up until then, I’d managed to keep my behavior a secret. I had a lot of freedom because I’d never given my parents a reason not to trust me—because I’d never been stupid enough to get caught. I wore what was expected—to school at least, I made it to church every Sunday, and then slipped in and out of the house undetected whenever I wanted through the service entrance. But that last year of high school was rough. Everyone was making plans for futures that I couldn’t even visualize. They had senior trips planned, colleges they were touring. I was still hiding out after school smoking a joint. I came to realize and accept that it was a good thing, setting me up with Nola
n.

  If not, I’d be haunted by the screwed-up girl I was in high school for the rest of my life.

  “So what do you want to do after this?” Nolan asks. He raises a hand to firmly signal the waiter that we’re ready for the check. I have to admit, on days like today, when he showed up a little late (albeit, more apologetic than necessary), and didn’t have time to shave, he appeals to me more and more.

  I guess anyone decent can grow on you after you’ve been around them long enough.

  “I don’t know, you have something in mind?” I ask, swirling my straw in my sickeningly sweet soda.

  Nolan takes his napkin from his lap, sets it onto the tabletop, and eyes me for a long moment. The ‘take charge’ attitude I’d caught a brief glimpse of is gone, and he’s suddenly nervous, which is its own brand of endearing.

  “Nolan?” I ask.

  “I was thinking you could come back to my place? We could… hang out?” He raises a hopeful eyebrow.

  I swipe the screen on my phone to check the time and notice I have a text. From Carter.

  So I had this bizarre craving for boiled peanuts. Kind of obsessed. Or maybe I just miss Georgia. Or maybe I just miss someone in Georgia. Anyway, can’t find the peanuts in any store here. Wanna bring me some?

  A smile curls on my lips, and I imagine showing up at Carter’s place with a bag of fresh peanuts, ready to boil them according to my Granny’s recipe. I wonder what his kitchen is like. I wonder if he’d stand pressing into me while I was at the stove, brushing the hair back from my neck so he could kiss all the sensitive places.

  I’m caught up in the fantasy, and then it hits me.

  It’s just a fantasy. Carter and me. Us having a snowball’s chance in hell of actually being together. My finger hesitates over the screen, then I swipe it off and look back at Nolan.