Page 35 of Things We Fake
Sue’s hand slid across the table, her fingers curling gently over mine.
“My God…” she whispered. “That must’ve turned your whole world upside down. Seventeen is such a young age to suddenly carry all that weight.”
She had no idea. But somehow, she seemed to understand enough.
I turned my palm up and held on to her hand—not tight, just steady.
“Yeah. I think I aged ten years that first night.” I closed my eyes, remembering. “I didn’t sleep at all, just wandered the house in the dark, wondering if my dad’s soul was still around. I was torn between asking for help and advice, or letting his soul rest after the horrible ordeal he’d been through.”
Sue didn’t speak, but her expressive eyes shone with compassion. Her silence was inviting, drawing me to open up a little more, to share the burden of that memory just for a moment. She would have made an exceptional psychologist.
I cleared my throat. “My brother Craig was fifteen. And my sister Becky—she was just a kid. Ten years old, and all she knew was that Dad had stopped cominghome from the hospital. Mom tried to shield her from the worst of it, but… kids know.”
“They always know,” Sue whispered, the pressure of her fingers on mine increasing slightly.
“I didn’t know how to be the man of the house,” I admitted, rubbing my thumb against hers. “But I knew someone had to step up. Mom worked seven days a week to keep us afloat, Craig spiraled for a while, and Becky needed someone who still believed things would be okay.”
A humorless laugh escaped me. “Seventeen-year-old me thought I could hold everything together with duct tape and a half-grown beard.”
“You probably did,” Sue said gently. “Hold it together, I mean. That’s a hell of a lot to carry.”
I stared down at our joined hands. “You do what you have to do. That kind of loss… it makes you grow up fast. Focus, or fall apart.”
I realized I didn’t want to bring down the whole night with ghosts, so I forced a smile and tore myself away from the memories. This was the first time I talked about this with a date. I still didn’t know what made me open up to Sue.
“Don’t worry,” I said lightly. “I’m not always this heavy. I promise I do more than brood over tragic backstory.”
Sue nudged my leg under the table with hers. “Hey, tragic backstory makes a guy interesting. It’s very Batman.”
That made me laugh for real. “Guess I just need a Catwoman to complete the package.”
She grinned, a playful spark in her eyes. “If we ever go to a Halloween party together, I’ll be your Catwoman.”
“I’ll make that happen just to see you wearing a black leather skin-suit.”
“It’s a deal.”
God help me, I already wanted to see her in a lot less than that. But I’d earned this moment—I wasn’t about to ruin it by getting greedy.
I looked down at our linked fingers. I loved Sue’s hands. They were soft and feminine, with clean short nails and transparent nail polish. She was so different from Britt, from all the women I’d dated before. She undid me with her simple, stunning beauty. She didn’t need colorful nail polish, or flamboyant makeup. She glowed from within. I realized now she had what most women chased and tried to fake—natural beauty.
Her voice was warm with curiosity as she urged the conversation forward. “Now, tell me about Becky. What’s she like?”
I felt my mouth twitch into a smile before I could answer. My sister always had that effect on me.
“She’ll always be a brat,” I said fondly. “But she’s a great human being—if you repeat that, I’ll swear you’re a rotten liar.”
Sue laughed—a warm, breathy sound that scattered all the shadows in my heart and quieted all the voices in my head. Another novelty. When I was with a woman, all I could do was struggle not to be myself, not to notice the spinach in her teeth or the asymmetry of her features. With Susanne, I felt settled. If I noticed anything out of place, it didn’t bother me.
“My lips are sealed,” she said. “Is she married?”
“Nope. She just wants toexperience life, as she puts it, before settling down.”
And honestly? I respected the hell out of that. My sister wasn’t rushing into relationships or clinging to something just because it was expected. She was forging her own path, like she always had.
“I can understand that,” Sue said, her tone thoughtful. “Caring for a family is hard work, and marriages don’t seem to last that long these days.”
I sighed, the statistic already etched in my brain. “I recently read that nearly half of marriages end in divorce.”
