Page 4 of Threads That Bind Us
Kenzie may be my only true friend of the group, someone I’d trust with my secrets, but everyone here has been more than decent to Ana. Thanks to them, she knows how to saygo fuck yourselfin four languages.
“Wish we had half the fucking money people drop on these dinners,” Kenzie mutters, and I can’t help but agree.
“A tenth,” I joke, nudging her with my elbow.
“You kind of get why your mom husband-hopped at places like this, you know?” she laughs humorlessly, shrugging me off and pushing to her feet. She reaches for her side instinctively, flinching as she stretches. Even half a year later, her body’s still recovering. And as much as I hate seeing her in pain, the knowledge that she’s safe soothes the feeling. That I madesureshe is.
That thought should comfort me, but my brain finally catches up to her words, piecing them together until they hit me in the chest like a brick. A sickening feeling settles in my stomach as I realize I might, in fact, have another option. Suddenly, I need to drop my elbows onto my knees and breathe deeply. I’m pretty certain this is a terrible idea. But I can’t leave any option unexplored when it comes to Ana. I can try for her. I can do this for her.
Three days later,I’m standing on the MARC platform half a block from a mid-tier restaurant that I have a six-thirty dinner reservation for. I left Ana at a weekend sleepover with her best friend Gray, and I absolutely did not tell her where I was going. I don’t expect Ben to have any desire to spend more time with Ana, but I’ll cross thetell your baby sister you asked her absent father for her cancer treatment moneybridge when I come to it. My nose stings from the cold as I hustle down the street, hoping to get this painful situation over with as quickly as possible.
Ben is wealthy, but easily bored and incredibly manipulative. For all my mother’s flaws, she was very careful not to get pregnant with her soup du jour’s offspring after she had me, but Ben wanted control. My theory is that he liked to prove he could manipulate every boundary a woman had before he would let her go. Tell her to dye her hair, leave her husband, lose weight, get a boob job, quit her career, stop using birth control.
He left the day he found out my mother was pregnant with Ana, and I haven’t seen him since.
I don’t expect that he’s turned over a new leaf regarding hisdaughter, but maybe he’s decent or self-centered enough to care if his genetic offspring makes it into her twenties.
I force myself not to vomit at the prospect of Ana not having a twenty-first birthday and smile at the hostess I’ve landed in front of. It’s mechanical and fake because, not for the first time, I’m paralyzed by the spiraling fear that keeps me up at night. Of Ana being one of the few who doesn’t survive this. Of too-small coffins and memorials at softball games.
The hostess leads me to a tiny two-top in a secluded corner, and I’m surprised to see Ben already there. He’s handsome in the way men who model for stock images are handsome, in a blank, vacant, and mildly unnerving way.
When the hostess pulls my chair out for me—a bit of a show for a place where nothing on the menu costs over forty dollars—Ben glances up from his phone and does a double take. For a second, it’s like he’s seen a ghost, and then his expression morphs into something between amusement and a challenge.
It’s quite the curse, looking so much like my mother. Most people would assume it’s the dark copper hair that’s our most obvious shared trait, but we look cloned in almost every aspect. Both of us are tall, with long arms and legs, wide hips, and small chests. Her hazelnut eyes are just a shade lighter than my dark brown ones, but the freckles scattered from nose to temple are shockingly identical.
I’ve been on the receiving end of the look Ben’s giving me a few times. The shock and intrigue, like an unaging ghost from their sexual past has come to haunt or fuck them. It’s all I can do to force myself to ignore the obvious question in their eyes—exactly how much like her mother is she?
“Gwendolyn, how are you?” Ben asks, and I hold back a massive eye roll. My name, in fact, is Guinevere. Guinevere and Morgana, childhood friends and future conspirators in King Arthur’s court. Our mother’s odd obsession with the fableforced us into some early nickname decisions, hence Gwen and Ana. It’s not lost on us that, in the tale, Morgana eventually murders Guinevere, but Isabelle’s not a stickler for details.
“Gwen is fine, Mr. Mattherson, and I’m…” I stumble a bit. How am I? There is literally not enough time in the day to explain. “I’m doing okay, all things considered. How are you?”
“Wonderful, now.” He smiles at me from across the table.
The lighting from the cheap battery-powered candle on the table casts an ugly shadow across his face, giving me full body chills. He picks up the red wine in front of him, and I can see his teeth through the glass as he drinks, which requires me to plaster my face still in order not to gag. This is for Ana. For Ana.
“You’re very kind,” I say as naturally as I can while forcing actual bile back. I grip the water glass sweating in front of me and take small, practiced sips. “How is your work going?”
That question alone is enough to get Ben rolling. It’s shocking how easy it is to get people like Ben to talk about themselves at length. Usually, with Ana and her friends, or co-workers at the restaurant, I love hearing people get ramped up about something they love. For Ana, it’s early 2000s vampire media, including an anime calledVampire Knight, whose two seasons we have watched an unholy number of times.
But when people like Ben talk about themselves, there’s no passion. They’re not doing it because their devotion to their work is so unbridled they can’t help but go on and on about what they love. No, they talk to maintain relevance.
It’s boring and trite, and I smile and nod through the conversation like I do with every table of men who want to impress their waitress. It’s nearly twenty minutes before Ben shifts the subject.
“So, Gwen, do you want to tell me why I’m here tonight?”
It feels harder than it should to open my mouth and ask formoney from this monstrosity. He should feel obligated to help his own child. But I’ve got this sinking feeling that Ben has never felt obligated to anything but his own dick.
“I’m actually here to ask a favor,” I start, putting a soft, simpering smile on my face.Play the part, Gwen.His eyebrows raise slightly but gives nothing away. “It’s about Ana.”
I truly should have expected the blank look I’m getting right now, but it somehow shocks me.
“Ana. Morgana. Your daughter?”
He laughs once, a bark turned toward the ceiling that raises the attention of the surrounding tables. He’s cradling his wine glass, and the urge to break it against his face is consuming.
“Of course, Ana,” he says, a little too loud. “How is she?”
I’m going to lose it, I really fucking am. Only the image of Ana doing treatmentalonebecause I had to pick up another shift for the money keeps me from falling victim to my poorly-managed temper.