Page 57 of The Rebound
“Can we actually talk?”
Her eyes flick to mine, the distracted look on her face replaced by instant wariness. “Okay.”
Okay.
“I—”
“Are you sick?”
I pause, confused as Louise brings one hand to her heart.
“Is that why you came back? You’re sick, aren’t you? I knew you—”
“I’m not sick,” I interrupt. “At least not that I’m aware of.”
“You’re not?”
“No.”
“Then why do you look so serious?”
“That’s just my face!”
“Abby!” We’re back to angry now. “Don’t scare me like that. Why do you have to be so dramatic about everything?”
“I’msorry.” I resist the urge to bang my head against the table as she turns back to her work. “Look, I wanted to talk about me staying longer than we originally discussed.”
“Oh yeah?” She smooths out another donation form, almost tearing it. “How long are we talking?”
“Another week maybe. Or two. Five. I don’t know,” I say when she looks up again. “I don’t really have anywhere else to go.”
“No shit.”
“What?”
“I haven’t booked my flight yet,” she says in a perfect imitation of me. “A child could come up with a better excuse.”
I blink at her. “You knew?”
It’s the wrong thing to say.
The phone goes down with a bang as she turns to me, her jaw set. “I know I’m not as smart as you, Abby, but just how stupid do you think I am?”
“Youknew?”
“You call me out of the blue asking if you can visit and then you arrive with a very large suitcase filled with random crap that no one needs for a two-week trip to Clonard. Who brings summer dresses to the west of Ireland in March? You seriously think I didn’t know something was up? When was the last time you evencalledme?”
“But you—”
“I kept waiting for you to tell me. I gave you multiple openings and each time you lied, and you’ve been acting soweirdabout the engagement and about Tyler and I just…” She slumps back in her chair, crossing her arms, and for one moment she looks so much like our dad that I’m a little freaked out. “So what happened?” she asks. “You broke up with him, right? You broke up with Tyler and you moved out and then you lost your job and now you have nowhere else to go? I mean, I’m glad to see you finally came to your senses, but—”
“He broke up withme.”
There’s a loud bleating to our left as Andrew herds the petting zoo animals past our stall. I barely risk them a glance as Louise, in a feat I didn’t know was possible, gets even more irate.
“Hewhat?”
“Louise—”
