I still don’t know how Katherine did it, but the game she played got her a lot of expensive crap. Fuck, it got her a diamond ring after only a few months of living with us. Mom divorced Harry’s cheating ass long before Katherine showed up, and the gold digger used that opening to implant herself into our lives. I never liked her, and Mia only tolerated her for Harry and Lenny’s sake.
“I’m always going to feel bad about what Mom did to you guys,” she admits softly, drawing her knees up to her chest. “I know you and Mia have told me not to, but I should have known. She was always up to something.”
I nudge her foot with mine. “You couldn’t have truly known because you saw the best in her. I don’t know how, but you see the best in everybody. It’s refreshing.”
“It’s clearly faulty.”
I chuckle. “Nah. You could be cynical about everyone like I am. Trust me, that’s no fun. Be grateful you have a sunnier outlook.”
Her head tilts. “Why not try trusting people more often? I’m not saying be like me but give people a chance.”
No matter what, she hasn’t grown up like me. It’s what makes us different. She’s only experienced a taste of what it’s like to come from Hollywood royalty. People see the last name and associate it with fortune—money and material things. I never want her to know that being cynical comes with this lifestyle.
“Are you finally going to tell me what you’ve been up to the past few years?” Changing the subject makes her bite into her bottom lip, but she indulges me with tales of working at a local fast food joint for minimum wage while attending school before having to drop out. That still makes me twitch, but I try not to let her see it. At least she’s telling me something. I can tell the other times I’ve asked, the look she gave me in return was one of shame and hesitation.
Apparently, she spent the two years following our parents’ separation flipping burgers and taking people’s orders. The money went toward bills and groceries because Katherine didn’t stick with a job long enough to make ends meet every month on her own. They got evicted from three different apartments in the span of that time, with no help from her family because they refused to acknowledge her “troubling past”. I remember Leighton telling me that her mother came from a religious family. Not only did Katherine laugh at their beliefs, she walked all over them. She partied, hooked up with men, then ran away to Hollywood the first chance she got, where she ended up meeting Harry for the first time during a commercial for some product he sponsored. Getting pregnant out of wedlock years later sealed their fate.
“I can’t say I miss them,” she explains long after our pizza is gone. She’s lounging on her back, her legs propped on the back cushions and her hair waterfalling over the front of the couch. “I didn’t know my grandparents all that well, except that Grandma always smelled like moth balls and sugar. I’m pretty sure I heard through the grapevine that my grandpa passed away last year but I don’t know.”
“Sorry to hear.”
“Like I said,” she murmurs, rolling her head to look at me, “I don’t remember them. I mean, it’s sad, but I have no real relationship with them. Mom always made them out to be bad people, but I think they just wanted what was best for her.”
I want to point out that they could have tried to have a relationship with her, but I don’t. I’m not about to squash any decent thoughts she might have of them.
“Mom and I lived out of the car your dad bought her for a little while. Only a couple weeks, but they were bad. It was hot, cramped, and embarrassing. A cop knocked on the window once and told us to move.”
Rage fills me in an instant. “How come you never reached out sooner, Leighton? I know I made it seem like I didn’t want to talk, but you had Mia.” I hate that I shut her out. If I’d known…God. If I’d known, I would have done something that might never have led to this.
She nibbles her lip and looks back up at the ceiling in avoidance. I don’t say anything else until she answers me. “I did talk to Mia. Not often, but sometimes I would use Mom’s phone to check in. Before you get upset, I never told her about my situation. Like I said, it was embarrassing. The last thing I wanted to do was ask for help because my mother couldn’t be a responsible adult. I only reached out when I did because I couldn’t figure out what to do. I didn’t have Mom, money for my own place, or friends I could ask to crash with.”
Blowing out a harsh breath, I scrub my face with my hands and try to ignore the burning in my chest. “Why didn’t she tell me that you two talked?”
“I asked her not to.”
“What?”
She presses her lips together.
“What the hell, Leighton!”
Swinging her legs around and sitting up, she hugs them to her chest. “What? I always looked up to you, Kyler. I saw you as my best friend for a while and I was glad when you went away. It made me think about all the things you said you wanted to do if you ever got to leave.”
Jesus Christ. She didn’t reach out because she wanted me to live my life. She let me go for the same reason I let her go.
Now look where we are.
Back in each other’s lives.
Facing off.
Together.
Where we should have been the whole damn time.
“One of these days, you’re going to let people take care of you without a fight.”
Her head shakes slowly. “I never want people to take care of me.”
My eyes narrow. “Why the hell not?”
There’s a small pause, a darkening of her gunmetal gray hues, before, “I want to be strong enough to take care of myself without depending on anyone. And one day, one day real soon, I will.”
I stare at her like she’s a stranger, which is absurd. She always had sheer determination when it came to living her life. Leighton never wanted to be like her mother, but now more than ever I can see the fire in her eyes that her mother’s death has ignited. It makes me wonder what she isn’t telling me, and that need to know is an incessant ball of nerves in my gut.
Knowing the conversation needs a pick me up, I stand while Lenny gives me a weird look. “I think I know how to turn this night around,” I tell her.
Her nose scrunches when I walk over to one of the remaining boxes in the corner and dig through the remnants inside. When I find what I’m looking for, I grin and turn with it in my hands.
The laugh I get is exactly what I hope for. “No way! You still have that?”
I walk over with the Mario Cart game and pass it to her. “We used to play this all the time. I wasn’t going to get rid of it.”
“Did you play after I left?”
No hesitancy. “No.”
“At all?”
I shake my head.
She watches me for a moment, almost like she can’t believe it, then a slow smile spreads across her face and melts away the emotional conversation leading up to this. “Then fire it up. I’m about to kick your butt.”
I laugh but do as she says knowing it’s not possible. Leighton has always sucked at video games no matter how hard she tried.
Twenty minutes later, she’s shoving my shoulder, jumping onto her knees on the couch and pointing her controller closer to the TV like it’ll somehow improve her chances. “That’s cheating! You can’t do that, Ky!”