Page 99 of The Surprise

“He is handsome, isn’t he?” Beth says. “Too handsome for me, right?”

The woman blinks.

“See? Even Iris knows.”

“What are you talking about?” I hiss. “Thanks.” I wave at Iris, who thankfully walks off. “Beth, stop.”

“Stop what?” She sighs. “I’m not a match for you, Ethan, and you’re the only one who doesn’t see it. Your family is bright and shiny, which I said from the start. And before you start again, me wearing a sparkly shirt would be like dressing a toad up to be a robin. It’s stupid. Toads can’t fly. They aren’t lovely. They croak and have warts, and no costume change will ever be enough.”

“This is a lot of nonsense,” I say. “We’re bothhuman, Beth. You’ve just been told by a lot of idiots that you suck, and you’re buying into their crap. But those idiots moved to Seattle and left you here, and now you’re with your aunt. Does she think you’re a toad? Because if she does—”

“I slept with someone, Ethan.” Her words are barely loud enough to hear, but they’re like daggers.

“You—” I choke. “You what?”

“That guy Hannah showed you a photo of?”

I shake my head.

“I went to Seattle, and my parents introduced me to this rich guy they want me to date. That was him.”

It’s like she slapped me, only worse. “You love someone else?”

“Love?” Beth’s laugh is loud. “I don’t even like him, really.”

“Then why—”

“Because I’m atoad, Ethan, and that’s what toads do. We wallow in the muck.” Beth stands up, plonks a five dollar bill on the table, and walks out. She turns and looks back at me, her eyes pained. “Please stop trying to make me fly. I may only be a toad, but it still hurts when I hit the ground.”

19

Beth

My mom doesn’t bake.

My dad doesn’t cookorbake. He can grill steak, boil hot dogs, or make a frozen pizza. That’s the extent of his skillset surrounding food.

Compared to them, I’m practically a chef. They tended to eat a lot of frozen dinners, takeout, or leftovers from going out to dinner before I got old enough to make food.

The place I learned basic cooking skills was, of all places, home economics in seventh and eighth grade. But the first time I ever made a cake was catastrophic. See, they had things labeled, but because it was all set up through the school, they kept the ingredients in huge plastic tubs. There were a lot of kids there, and sometimes the labels fell off.

That day, the label came off the sugar.

And the salt.

There are some mistakes that are no big deal, like the time I used milk chocolate instead of semi-sweet in cookies. Dad liked the cookies better, I think. Or the time I forgot to cook the lasagna noodles before baking them. They were a little crunchy, but it was edible. But when you use salt in place of sugar, a cake tastes and looks. . .well, not like a cake. Life’s like that. You can laugh off some mistakes.

Others, not so much.

When I woke up next to Jackson, I was mortified. Sickened. Full of disgust and rage. Grandma and Grandpa were delighted when they saw me scamper across the deck and dart back inside my room.

That night was like substituting salt for sugar.

It wasn’t a mistake that I can come back from.

The whole cake was ruined.

I never thought I was good enough for Ethan, but now? I can’t even face him. I thought I could just hide. I thought he’d let me be, but that’s not his way. Looking at him, listening to him tell me how great I was, it made me feel even worse. I realized in that moment that the only way I’d ever be free of the anchor dragging me down was to tell him the ugly truth.

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