Page 9 of Broken Secrets
My phone buzzes with a text from Derek:
Derek
How are you holding up after our lunch talk?
I stare at his message, then type back.
Me
Can I come over? I keep thinking about what you said, and I don’t want to go home yet.
DEREK
Of course. See you soon.
I sit in my car for a moment after reading his response, phone warm in my hands. It’s strange how easy it is to talk to Derek about all this when I can barely say my father’s name out loud to my own mother. Maybe it’s because he doesn’t have eighteen years of secrets weighing down every conversation. He actually listens instead of deflecting unlike my mom and Robert.
Something bigger than just a failed relationship. You don’t cut someone out so completely, without a reason running deeper than hurt feelings.
If Jeremy did something truly awful, why would he seem so normal on his business website? Why would he have glowing reviews from customers calling him “reliable” and “trustworthy”? Why would he flash a disingenuous smile for the family photos if he had a sinister secret to conceal?
Maybe Mom cut him out because she could. Because she was the one with the baby, the one with the power to decide what story I grew up believing. I wonder if Jeremy tried to stay in touch and she shut him down. Or if he gave up on me because she made it too hard.
Derek’s house comes into view. Out front it has a well-maintained garden and a basketball hoop in the driveway. It looks like the kind of place where families have Sunday barbecues and kids grow up feeling safe and wanted.
The kind of place I might have had if things had been different.
He opens the door before I can knock like he’s been watching for my car.
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” he says, stepping aside to let me in.
“Close.” I sink onto his couch, pulling my knees up to my chest.
“It’s been eating at you all afternoon, hasn’t it?”
I nod, pulling out my phone to show him the screenshot again. “I keep staring at this photo. At how perfect they all look together.”
He takes my phone, studying the image more carefully than he did at lunch. “She really does look like you. Same eyes, same facial structure.”
“That’s what makes it worse,” I say. “Seeing myself in her face. Knowing that’s what I could have looked like in a family photo if things had been different.”
“Shit,” he says finally. “I’m sorry, Liv.”
“The worst part is how happy they look.” I stare at the screen. “Like a perfect little family. Complete without the daughter he abandoned in California.”
“You don’t know he abandoned you,” Derek says gently. “Maybe your mom left. Maybe there’s more to the story.”
“Then why won’t she tell me what it is?”
“I don’t know. But…” He hands my phone back. “This doesn’t change who you are. You’re still you, whether he’s in Michigan with another family or on Mars.”
I want to believe him. But seeing Emma’s face, seeing how she fits so perfectly in the family photo, makes me feel like I’m staring at the life I should have had.
“I keep wondering what she’s like,” I admit. “Emma. Does she play soccer? Is she good at math? Does she know about me?”
“Maybe someday you’ll be able to ask her.”
Someday. Like it’s possible instead of a fantasy.
