Lucas's mother the insatiable gossip.
Lucas's mother my stepfather's ex-wife.
“Oh no,” I whisper.
Lucas turns around and sees her, and his mouth falls open, and he breathes in sharply and says, “Taylor, I'm so sorry,” but it's too late. She's already disappeared up the stairs. She's probably already working out who to call first.
It's out.
I drive home. My first thought is to call Theo, of course, but he's watching his brother right now and I know from experience that babysitting little siblings is not the best situation for hearing scary news.
Although it does occur to me that he might not find this particularly scary. He was fine with this getting out. It was me who was terrified. Is terrified.
Because, for the first time in my life, I have literally no idea how my mother is going to react to something. I know her better than I know anyone. I know what commercials will make her cry when they've barely started. I know what weather she is and is not okay with driving in. I know the names of all her ex-boyfriends, and why they broke up, and what she wants for every holiday, and what she wants me to pick up at the store when she hasn't asked, and what she'll think about everyone I've dated before I've even told her their names.
Except this time.
All I know for sure is that my witch of a sort-of-stepmother will have definitely already called Dominic. And I know from the second I walk in that I'm right.
They're sitting in the living room across from each other on the sofa and the love-seat. They look at me when I enter without getting up. They both have the exact same expression, which I guess is impressive. It's the same face my mother made when she knew I'd failed a math test. Before I told her.
Because she just knows me.
“Hi,” I say.
My mother raises one eyebrow. I can't do that. She used to try to teach me.
I say, “Where's Alexis?”
“In her room,” Dominic says.
“I'm going to go play with her,” I say. I should come up with some specific thing I'll do with her. That would be more believable. I can't think right now.
“Sit,” my mother says.
Eesh.
“Why don't you tell us about your boyfriend?” Dominic says.
My mother coughs out a laugh. “Tell us about your girlfriend.”
I point to Dominic without looking at him and dig myself a little deeper. “This is not his business.”
My mom looks like she's about to scream at me—at least somewhat rightfully—for being the world's worst stepdaughter, but I cannot deal with this right now, but to my surprise Dominic stands up. “Your'e right,” he says, and he says it gently. “You two talk. I'll start on dinner.”
It's kind of an empty gesture, both because you can absolutely hear everything in the living room from the kitchen, and because I'm too far gone right now to appreciate him doing something nice.
It's me and my mother right now.
My mom does that laugh again. “To hear about this from her--”
“You know I never would have planned for that to happen.”
“So what were you planning on, Taylor? Just never telling me?”
“It's not a big deal, Mom.”
“All right. Not a big deal. So why don't you tell me what it is?”
“I met this boy.” My voice is shaking. “At the party that Lucas took me to. At the beginning of the year. And I...I thought he was nice, and then it turned out he had a girlfriend, so I figured that was, you know, the end of that, but then I found out that he and his girlfriend do this polyamory thing.”
“So you're part of some...group of girlfriends.”
“No, it's just me and Josey.”
“Josey,” she says. “I should have known.”
I decide not to go into whatever it is she's implying here. “And at first I thought that was really crazy, but then they told me more about it and how they make it work, and Josey's parents do it.” I know immediately I should not have said that part.
“Great,” she says. “Great, what a great influence.”
“They're not bad people, Mom.”
“I...” she sighs. “I'm sure they're not. That doesn't mean it's some kind of lifestyle that you should be...how can you think this is fair to you, honey? I raised you better than to let some boy...”
“To let some boy what? Show me it's possible to love two people this much?”
She looks at me steadily. “So you're saying he loves you.”
“Yes.”
“As much as he loves her?”
“I think so.”
“Well,” she says. “I'm sure she thinks so too.”
Maybe I should tell her that they broke up. That we broke up. Maybe that would make her okay with this.
Okay. “He's actually not...they're not together anymore. They broke up a couple of months ago.”
“So it's just you and him now.”
“Yeah.”
“Are you planning to add some more girls?”
God, it sounds awful when she says it. “I don't know,” I say. “Maybe.”
“So this is the kind of life you want to have,” she says. “You're going to be someone's second wife your whole life, this is your plan?”
“I don't...”
“I raised you better than this,” she says, and I can't take that twice.
“You raised me as a small version of you, and I'm not you,” I say. “You can't just have me live your same life!”
“Taylor.”
“So you'd rather I screw some guy I don't know and get pregnant, that's what you're saying?”
She stands up and walks out of the room.
Oh God.
I can't believe I said that. Oh God.
I don't even think that that's bad. I just wanted to hurt her.
So I follow her. She's already up the stairs and in her
