Page 182 of Never Tell Secrets
“Yes. It’s my writing space. Mum said I can build a fort for inside because it’s getting colder.”
“Can I see it?” I asked, reaching for his book.
“No!” He snatched it away. “You have to go inside now so I can finish.” He pointed at the house, a stern look on his face.
“Alright. Have fun.” I kissed his head and left him to continue his writing.
I found my sister in the kitchen and felt some tension leave my chest as she pulled me into a hug. “Hey you, I got your text that you’d be in your garden but I didn’t tell Ryan because he would be going nuts to see you.”
“That’s fine. So, how long has he been writing under a slide for?”
We killed time for five minutes as she made us a cup of tea, dancing around the elephants in the room with small talk. I didn’t ask about Riley. She didn’t ask about Alfie. Until finally, we ran out of subjects to distract ourselves with. She broke before I did.
“I haven’t told Ryan yet, about Riley being his father.” She leaned against the counter, a mug of tea in her hand, her gaze drifting to the window every now and again to keep an eye on her son. “They’ve been spending time together but I just told Ryan he’s a friend of mine.”
“That’s fair. What does Ryan make of him?”
“He adores him, responds to him in a way I’ve never seen him respond to anyone.” She sipped her tea and gazed into the cup, as if the brown liquid held all the answers to life's problems.
“Is Riley pushing for you to tell him?”
“Not yet. He’s being very understanding. Verypolite.”
I arched an eyebrow at her, reading between the lines. “And you want him to be a little less polite with you?”
“No!” she protested and I snorted, trying to hold back my laugh. She sighed, hiding her smile behind another sip of tea. “I don’t know what I want.”
“Well, that makes two of us,” I muttered and this time it was her turn to arch her eyebrow at me.
“How’re things going between you and Alfie?”
“Things are…complicated.” That was an understatement.
“More complicated than him stealing your birth control?” There was an edge in her voice, an edge that I knew was all the sharper because she knew the toll an unplanned child could have on a person.
“Yeah, more complicated than that.”
“He hasn’t changed?”
“Oh, he’s changed. He has a therapist now.” Well, hehada therapist before she fired him.
“That’s good. I still reserve the right to call him a prick for what he did.”
“Fair enough.”
We were silent for a moment, taking pensive sips of our tea. “Do you love him still?” Her question caught me off guard. It was surprisingly painful, hitting me in the chest.
“I feel for him still. I don’t know if it’s healthy enough to call it ‘love.’ I don’t know if it ever was.” Love was supposed to be a good thing and there was a part of me that felt that for Alfie, butso much of it was smothered in the smoggy aftermath of all of the bombs he’d dropped on us.
“What he’s done, can you forgive him?”
“I’m trying, for my own peace of mind. It’s trusting him again that’s the problem.”
She nodded and I could see my sister trying very hard not to judge. “Maybe you should try looking at it like a fresh slate. Start over, without the mad infatuation or whatever it was before. Just date for a while. Casual.”
Casual.If the last two months had taught me anything, it was that casual is one thing Alfie and I would never be.
“Is that what you’re going to do?” I asked her. “Date Riley?”
