After losing her job and her girlfriend, it's time for Annie Abraham to admit defeat and move back in with her parents. She has hardly been back to her tiny Montana hometown since the unforgettable summer before her senior year of college, when she...
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Annie's worried about the wrong brother. Theo and I have a lot in common, sure, but Nathan and I have more.
We share a child.
I don't know what to do.
Oh, god, I don't know what to do. I'm not even sure he recognizes me, the way he says a polite hello before his eyes jump over me to his girlfriend when she corrals all of us into the dining room. My shoes are lead weights all of a sudden, and every drop of blood must have left my face, and I don't even realize how hard I'm holding onto Annie's hand until she shakes me off with a laugh.
"It's only my family," she says. "They won't bite."
I don't point out that Nathan does. I woke up on Christmas Day two years ago with a sore lip where his teeth had broken my skin.
It's him. I'm sure of it. I recognize his face, his height, his deep voice. He's tall, he's blonde, he has Ava's eyes. Ava has her father's eyes. Ava has a father. I can't stop the words from rattling around in my head because this is not what I wanted. This is so not what I wanted. I was happy not knowing. I made peace with it. Now that peace is shaken up like a snowglobe and I'm in the middle, the shreds of it flying all around me, and nobody knows.
Annie thinks I'm nervous about meeting her family. She has no idea that my whole world has just been shaken up. No idea that she has a niece. No idea that I slept with her brother two years ago and now she's an aunt.
Keep your shit together. I will not be the newcomer who ruins a family dinner. Nathan doesn't remember me – why would he? He was steaming drunk – and if I can just keep it together, nobody has to know. Not now, at least. Not tonight. But I've had two glasses of champagne to take the edge off my nerves and I barely ate any lunch because I didn't want to ruin my appetite for tonight, and despite my lead shoes, I feel oddly weightless.
This is some kind of new territory beyond an anxiety attack. Like I've ascended into a new realm of panic and horror and all I can do is numbly follow the family to the dining room, where Annie's mom has laid out a beautiful table that screams Christmas joy. The delicious scent of Annie's dad's cooking wafts through from the kitchen but I can't bear the thought of eating now. My stomach has clenched itself into a fist and my ribs are knives; if I breathe too deeply they will pierce my lungs.
And then, in a split irrational second, my fear turns to anger. How can he not even remember? How can he look me in the eye and not remember? How can he fuck me in a bathroom and change my life forever and not even remember my face?
Deep down, I know the rage is pointless, nonsensical, a waste of energy, but it's easier to deal with than the nerves. I can walk straight when I'm angry. I can stand with my head held high and I can shake the lead out of my shoes and I can loosen my death grip on Annie's hand. She gives me a smile, and she makes sure we sit together, Theo on my other side, but that means Nathan is directly opposite me. He has no choice but to look at me.
