Friend Is a Four Letter Word (5 page)

I spend a few hours in my room crying and sleeping. When I finally wake up, the house feels cozy and warm. It’s got to be inching close to dawn, but it’s still pitch black out. I love this time of day, when the entire world feels like it’s asleep, and I can just drift in my own thoughts, free of the usual pressuring worries that crowd into my head.

This time of day feels like the gift of a new beginning. Anything is possible. Nothing is unfixable.

Which is a good thing, because I have a ton of fixing to do.

I screwed up. I made some huge mistakes. And I need to make things right. I dig out the snowman pajamas Mom got me this year. She loves dorky pajamas for our Christmas morning family photo. I shimmy out of the clingy party dress, and into the cozy flannel, braid my hair back, scrub the runny makeup off my face, brush my teeth, notice that I only have one diamond earring in, so I take it out and hope my parents don’t ask about it, then creep to the stairs to see if Mom and Dad are still up.

I lean around the wall to listen better, and my heart pumps faster at the sound of their voices. At first it’s just mumbles, but I listen closer, my heart sinking when I realize they’re worried about me. A night that should be pretty fun and peaceful is spent worrying if I’m going to nosedive off the deep end.

“Should we be worried?” Mom asks Dad in a hushed voice. I can practically see her wringing her hands.

Dad’s sigh carries all the way up the stairs. “Worried? I’m not sure. I think it’s probably normal to experiment, Trish.”

I creep down a few more steps. I can see them in the warm little living room, illuminated by a fire crackling in the fireplace. The tree is my mother’s pride and joy, and she meticulously hangs every blown glass German ornament so there isn’t a single empty branch. It’s one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen.

But it also makes me feel like I don’t belong here more than ever.

I may be dressed in flannel holiday duds and scrubbed fresh and clean, but that doesn’t change the partying, intoxicated rebel I am at heart. Suddenly I’m not all that sure I can just pop up and change my ways. No matter how conscientious I am, I may never be the perfect addition to this little storybook scene.

It breaks my heart, even while it gives me this thrilling sense of freedom.

“The church though, they all know what she was doing. They all smelled the alcohol on her,” Mom moans. She wrings her hands together, just like I guessed. “We’re going to have major damage control to do this week. How are we going to have a solid youth group when we can’t even keep our own daughter under control?”

Some of the benevolence I was building up leaks away. I know my mother is more worried about how other people see her than she maybe should be, but she could give a tiny bit more of a crap about me and how I’m doing, instead of focusing all her attention on how everyone else in her life will see the situation.

“All we can do is pray for her,” Dad says.

The unwavering solution to everything in his eyes. I wish I believed in anything as much as my dad believes in his faith.

Dad carefully arranges a few gifts under the tree. I love that they still play Santa, waiting until Christmas Eve to put all the perfectly wrapped presents out when they think I’m asleep. I’m so far past the age of believing in Santa—or anything really, but they still put forth that effort.

That tiny, sweet gesture solidifies my decision to play by their rules. To do the right thing and be the right person. I have to stop fighting it and at least give it a shot.

Dad pauses as he sets a tiny box in the branches of the tree. He keeps working on trying to balance it without knocking off any ornaments when he says, so low I almost miss it, “I’m more worried about Celeste.”

My mother gasps, and winds up knotting the bow she was tying into a perfect decorative flourish.

“Why would you say that name?” Mom asks, her voice chilly. I’m a little shocked. My parents are pretty old school when it comes to their marriage. Mom is definitely all about Dad being head of the house, and she hardly ever disagrees with him.

What the hell could have made her so upset?

I immediately start scanning my memories for anyone named Celeste who would invoke the look of horror currently in my mother’s eyes, but I come up empty.

Dad reaches over and pats Mom’s arm. It looks like he wants to pull her in for a hug, but she turns away. I’m so shocked, I almost slide down the stairs.

Dad retreats. “I don’t mean to upset you, darling, but if Shayna keeps down this path, we may need to consider that she is more her mother’s daughter than we had hoped. That maybe all of our nurturing couldn’t compete with nature.”

My mother’s daughter? What? Nature vs. Nurture? What the hell are they talking about?

“
I
am her mother,” Mom hisses firmly, with a look of fury I’ve never seen darkening her face.

“I know that. You’re more of a mother than any child could ever dream of having, and Shayna is so lucky that she ended up with you. But there may be something to what the specialists said when we adopted her. There may be things about her real parents and their pasts that we can’t fight.”

All of my breath leaves me.

My lungs burn like I’ve spent the day in the pool and they are clouded with chlorine.

I paw at my throat, willing the air to return but it won’t.

Adopted?

No.

No, no, no, no!

I must have misunderstood. How could that be? And how could my parents keep it from me for so long? It makes no sense. None.

It’s impossible.

Not. Freaking. Possible.

“I’m not willing to accept that,” Mom says, finally letting Dad pull her close and dropping her forehead onto his shoulder. “When we adopted her, we made a promise that we would love her and protect her. That our love would be enough to quash any of that. Anything that may be in her blood or family history wouldn’t matter because we would love her enough.” She balls her fists into Dad’s sweaters and says the words like they’re some spell that will come true if she just believes hard enough.

I feel like all my bones have melted. I feel like a helium balloon, unmoored and floating above everything. I knew I let my mother down. I knew I hurt her. I had no idea just how much. I raise my fist to my mouth, pressing my knuckles to my lips to stifle back the sobs.

Dad nods, smoothing a hand over her hair. “I know. I know our reasons for not telling her, Trish.”

I reach a shaky hand down to my own arm and pinch it hard to see if I can feel it.

“Exactly. If we accept that that is just the way she is going to be, that’s the same as telling her she came from a drug addict mother and a felon father, David. I’m not sentencing her to a life of knowing that,” she growls, reminding me of a lioness defending her cub. “We’ll get through this. We will.” She keeps repeating it like a mantra while Dad smooths her hair.

I shake my head, hard, willing myself to wake up from this insane dream.

But the clouds don’t part and, as my parents cling to each other and comfort one another, I know that my plan—what I came down here to tell them—is just as strong now as it was ten minutes ago.

My father said I was selfish. I’m not.

I know I’m probably in shock, probably not able to process, but I’m not the one who’s hurting here. I’m not the one who’s worried and worked and prayed for another person so tirelessly.

They’ve kept this from me for a reason, and I’m not willing to let them down. I don’t want to succumb to a life like the parents they are describing.

My parents.

My parents?

I sit up straight on the steps.

My parents are David and Patricia Gillan, the people who have loved me and cared for me since I was born.

They have never once treated me like I was anything but their daughter, never once lashed out at me like I really had the blood of drug addicts flowing through my veins, I wasn’t going to become that person they were so afraid for me to be now.

I can’t make sense of all of it right at this moment, but I know one thing: my resolve is strong.

If they know that I know, they will have no choice but to change the way they treat me—I’ll no longer be their daughter. Not in the way I always have been. I will be their
adopted
daughter. The one who has problems because it’s who I am, twisted in my DNA and building in every chromosome.

I will
not
become that person. Not now, not ever.

I’ll help protect their secret. Lock it away in my brain. No one ever needs to know. I am Shayna Gillan. Daughter of Pastor and Mrs. Gillan.

Period.

“Mom? Dad? Are you guys awake?” I say, my voice small.

I watch their necks straighten as they snap to attention. Mom uses the back of her wrist to wipe the tears from under her eyes, and Dad clutches her hand. They exchange a quick, panicked glance.

“Merry Christmas,” I say, rubbing at my eyes like I’ve just woken up and haven’t heard anything. I did the same thing when I was six and saw them putting gifts under the tree. I let them think I still believed in Santa for four more years.

Visible relief washes over both of them.

“Merry Christmas, honey,” Mom says, her smile warm and happy. She glances at my dad, and her look says,
See! There’s our girl. One little bump wasn’t worth all that worry. She’s still our angel.

I give them both my biggest smile and reach out to hug them both, allowing the three-person group hug to wash over me. I’m the good daughter they both raised with so much love and hope.

New, determined, good-girl Shayna starts
now
.

Seven months. That’s how long I’ve been in this…
relationship
, for lack of a better word.

You know, if I were the type of girl that kept track of those types of things, that is.

It’s not like I know how long we’ve been dating because it’s been seven months of bliss and I cherished each and every day. It’s not like I’ve been counting down, excited at the prospect of ending up in this swanky restaurant, hoping that he remembers what a special day this is, too.

Or better, that he has some expensive gift tucked away in his crisp, well-tailored pants.

Nope. I know this is my seven month anniversary because it was a reminder from my mother before I left this evening.

“Shayna, that boy may have something up his sleeve for tonight, and you’d better be ready for it!” she’d said.

“Like what? Bowling instead of fencing?” I asked with a sigh I quickly disguised. Operation Perfect Daughter was stretching into another grueling month. I knew I was doing it for all the best, noblest reasons, but I sometimes doubted Navy Seals went through this kind of endurance testing.

Mom pulled the pin from my hair, letting the long blonde strands fall loose. “You look better with your hair down. And no. Tonight is your anniversary, or did you forget?” She fluffed my hair with her fingers and looked at me in that dreamy way that let me know she wouldn’t really be listening to anything I said.

“Anniversary of what? Selling my soul?” I griped. I would have felt guilty if she looked crushed, but Mom didn’t even flinch. In fact, she smiled like it was some kind of funny joke.