Roseanne.
Dad: Can you come to the staff meeting this week?
Roseanne: Which day? What time?
Dad: Thursday at one.
Roseanne: Yeah, I might have to shuffle one of Lisa's appointments that will conflict with it.
Dad: I'm sure she can manage an appointment on her own. Seems like you've got her on a pretty tight leash.
Roseanne: Again. He's not a dog.
There's a chinook rolling through today. You'd think the breeze would cool my cheeks, but the air is downright balmy. All the hard work I did in the waiting room to compose myself while Lisa had her scan went right down the toilet the minute she came striding back out with a knowing grin on her face.
Cocky motherfucker.
On our walk out the main doors of the hospital, I avoid her eyes. It's awkward. Really fucking awkward. And it's such a Alice move. She's never outright mean to me. She's passive aggressive, she's calculated. Alice plays the long game. I can just see our dad mentioning what I've been up to and her filing that information away for the perfect moment to embarrass me with it.
I hate to call her conniving, because there's this little part of me that truly loves her. Admires her. I wish we'd been given the opportunity to forge our own type of relationship. But the evil stepmother got her fingers in there and played us both like puppets, easily making me out to be the source of all family strife. Alice never got a chance to like me, and no matter how hard I try, she doesn't seem interested. It's something that keeps me up at night. I long for a relationship with her. Yearn to have one more person I can consider family, rather than just Mason.
Seeing Lisa and her family together-even pestering each other the way they do-makes my chest ache. I want that one day.
"Did you doodle our names with a heart around them in your binders?" That's how she breaks the silence.
I press my lips together into a firm line, willing myself not to smile. I don't want to give her the satisfaction of laughing at her joke. Even if it's funny.
"No."
"Did you. . ." She trails off, scrubbing at her chin. "Kiss the page you ripped out of a magazine?"
I scoff. "I didn't rip it out. I cut it out very carefully. And now I'm looking forward to throwing darts at it."
She barks out a laugh and grins down at me, looking altogether too handsome and pleased with herself. Which forces me to glance away and try to hide my smile. But when I do, my eyes land on the McLaren parked ahead of us, in a towaway zone with its hazards on. It's the license plate that makes me stop in my tracks.
DRHEART
As a teenager, I thought it was witty. Now I think it's lame beyond compare.
"You okay?" Lisa's hand lands on my lower back as she looks down at me, concern etched across her features.
"I'm just joking around. You should probably fire me for sexual harassment."
"I . . ." I shake my head. "No. Just my ex." I nod my head toward the vehicle parked about ten car lengths ahead of us.
her eyes follow mine and then roll when they catch sight of the expensive sports car. "Of course, it is."
I just swallow in response.
"Do we like this ex?" her fingers pulse on my lower back, and I lean into her, not forgetting the way she stepped up to protect me when Alice's claws came out.
"It's complicated," I breathe.
"Complicated how?" Lisa's voice takes on an edge that has me looking up at her and away from Jaehyun's illegally parked car.
