Page 27 of Level With Me
In the bathroom now, I grimaced at myself in the mirror. My hair was all over the place—Ned would have laughed if he saw me.
I had a flashback to him sitting me down on the couch in our apartment, that moment. “I’m leaving you, Cass.”
I’d smoothed down my hair then, too.
You met someone else, didn’t you?I’d asked. It was my worst fear. Worse, it was like a premonition had come to fruition. Like this was always how it would end—with my humiliation. After all those years talking myself into staying with him, thinking he was a good guy—or at least the best I could get.
I didn’t exactly meet her…
Anger, as hot as it had come that day, shook me. I gripped the tube of lipstick I’d picked up, startling as the lid popped up and clattered into the sink.
“You okay?”
I startled, looking up to see my sister in the mirror. I turned to look at her in person. “I’m sorry, Chels, about Dad—”
But she shook her head. “It’s okay. He’s definitely gone a little off his rocker since Mom, but hey, so have I, right?”
I opened my mouth to protest, but she glanced at my lipstick. “That’s a power shade.” She hated talking about what she was going through, even if she acknowledged it herself.
I fought the urge to ask again what I could do to help her. It would end the conversation fast. Instead, I extended the color out of the tube. “Ned hated this shade. Told me it looked like I was trying too hard.”
“He was the king of negging, Cass. I wish we’d have known.”
“I wish I’d seen how twisted it was when I was in it.”
She smiled sadly. “It’s hard to see when they’re your whole world.”
Was she talking about one of us now? I looked at my baby sister in the mirror. “You know, I’m supposed to be the older, wiser one.”
Chelsea shrugged. “Maybe you were wise in not telling our brothers everything about Ned, at least. Griffin would have kicked his ass.”
I laughed, but a lump had formed in my throat, tears pricking my eyes.
“All of them would,” I said.
Chelsea nodded, brushing my hair back with her hands.
I studied her for a moment. She’d been out again last night. She’d painted over the exhaustion under her eyes with concealer, but I could tell.
“Sometimes brothers are good for something, huh?” she took the lipstick from me. She was pre-empting my asking her what was going on yet again.
This time, shamefully, I didn’t have the energy to fight it.
Chelsea kicked the toilet lid down and guided me over to sit on it. “Let me help.”
For the next five minutes, I let Chelsea brush and style my hair and put makeup on me while she chatted about one of the conferences she’d been working on for next month. I relaxed into the cadence of her voice, knowing she didn’t necessarily need me to hear the words; that she was just distracting me. But after a long pause, when she was brushing lipstick on my lips, she said, “What spurred this sudden bout of feelings about Ned? Was it Dad?”
I looked up at Chelsea. Her face showed soft concern. But sharing my feelings was not my strong suit. My strong suit was… showing my strong suit. Being the brave one; the leader. Still, what was the point of hiding everything? It would be a relief to let at least the cap off the pressure.
“It’s both of them,” I said. “And… someone else.”
Chelsea’s eyes widened. The hint of a smile played at her lips. “Oh?”
“It’s not like that.” But even as I said it, that little voice in my head contradicted me.
It’s exactly like that.
I hesitated. I couldn’t say who it was. Even if I said it was just some guy, the details were too obvious. Not only that, I didn’t know how to explain how much I’d been rattled by Blake.
