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She came over and said, “Okay, chin up,” and then lightly spritzed my neck.

I breathed in the vanilla-y scent and had a sudden flashback to the party on Friday night.

It came so out of nowhere that it took me a second to realize that I’d smelled this perfume when I’d been sitting in the kitchen after Sebastian had left.

Until this moment, I’d completely forgotten that he said Ainsley and Imogen were going to the party too.

My heart leapt into my throat as I realized what that meant.

Ainsley and Imogen were at the party when I kissed Sebastian .

I’d been so focused on making sure that Dean didn’t find out about the kiss that I hadn’t given a moment’s thought to how Sebastian’s sisters might react.

At the time, it hadn’t seemed important—because it was before we’d started becoming friends.

A lump formed in my throat as I imagined what Ainsley’s reaction to finding out about the kiss would be, if she found out now.

I cleared my throat and tried to act casual as I asked, “So, is Sebastian here? ”

“Oh, here we go,” Imogen said, rolling her eyes and turning away from me.

She knew. She had to know. Why else would she react like that to such an innocent question?

I could just imagine the thoughts spinning around her head right now, thinking about how I was so obsessed with her brother.

She probably thought I’d only befriended Ainsley so I could get even closer to Sebastian.

I’d been so stupid for letting Sebastian kiss me in front of everyone like that.

Even if it had been the perfect first kiss—I never should have said yes.

“Sorry,” Ainsley said, shooting a glare at her sister that Imogen didn’t see because she still had her back turned. “Imogen’s a little sensitive about people asking about Sebastian.”

People . Not just me.

“Because every time we make a new friend, all they talk about is Sebastian!” Imogen snapped, spinning back around to face us.

She put on a high-pitched mocking tone: “ What’s Sebastian doing?

Is Sebastian here? Can I come over and see your brother?

” She huffed and put her hands on her hips, her manicured nails bright against the black fabric of her dress.

She raised an eyebrow at me. “It gets old really fast, trust me.”

I wasn’t sure if I was in the clear yet, but at least her anger didn’t seem to be centred on the kiss. Even if she did know about it, she was mad about more general things than just that. Maybe it shouldn’t have been reassuring, but it was.

“Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean…” I cleared my throat and looked away because I understood why girls were asking about Sebastian.

I understood why they were in terested in him.

I felt like the kiss with him had changed me, altered my brain chemistry forever—but that wasn’t the reason I was hanging around Ainsley.

And I’d been careful the last few days that we’d been talking not to bring up her brother too much, because I knew exactly how annoying it was.

“People are like that with Dean too. I don’t really have a lot of friends, but the ones that come around seem to only be interested in him. ”

Imogen blinked at me in surprise, then at Ainsley, who shrugged back at her.

“I really didn’t mean anything by it,” I continued. “I was just curious. I was going to ask where Lavender was too.”

Okay, maybe that was a lie, but it was one that made Imogen’s face clear, so it was for the best. I really hadn’t meant to upset her.

I would have to be more careful about not asking after Sebastian in front of them, but that was probably a good practice for me to adopt, anyway.

I didn’t want to raise anyone’s suspicions about why I was so interested in him.

Besides, Sebastian had given no indication that he’d thought about the kiss since the night it happened, so maybe it was time that I let go of it too.

We all headed downstairs so we could leave for the game—which, Ainsley whispered to me on the stairs, Sebastian had already left for a while ago—and met up with Mrs. Novak, who was waiting by the door.

“Well, don’t you three just look lovely?” she asked. “Maybe I should get a photo.”

Imogen and Ainsley both immediately groaned. The reaction was enough to tell me that this was a consistent event in their house .

“Mum, we don’t need a photo every time we go to a soccer game,” Ainsley said.

“Oh, please, just one, just one,” Mrs. Novak said, and she grabbed a digital camera sitting on a table by the door.

I assumed she meant she just wanted a photo of her daughters, so I tried to step aside, but she immediately instructed me to move in closer with the girls.

Neither Imogen nor Ainsley seemed surprised at the request, so I tried to act like I wasn’t either, even though I couldn’t imagine my mom ever wanting a photo of my friends, like Mrs. Novak was doing now.

The flash went off three times in quick succession, leaving me seeing stars.

As soon as Mrs. Novak dropped her arms so she could look at the photos, Ainsley moved in to try to take the camera from her mom, who immediately moved away.

Ainsley kept going for it and the ensuing struggle meant that her mom took a couple more photos, probably awful angles of Ainsley standing over it.

I watched from the sidelines, both laughing and feeling a small ache in my chest. It was great to see the Novaks getting along so well, but it hurt me at the same time, because I knew that my mom and I would never have an interaction like that.

She would never let her guard down enough to just enjoy the moment.

She’d taken plenty of photos of us but never candid ones like this.

She would only do it when she had chosen what I was going to wear, placed me in the right spot, and taken the perfect photo, then told everybody, “Oh look, I just happened to catch my daughter on her way out the door and look how cute she looks.” It was all fake. Everything was fake in her world.

And so, watching this—a genuine, real interaction between Mrs. Novak and Ainsley—made my heart hurt so much that I desperately wanted to look away.

But I couldn’t bring myself to do it, because even if it wasn’t my mom who had taken a photo of me tonight, at least someone had.

At least there would be photographic proof that I’d gone to this soccer game, looking as imperfect as I did.

At least there was somebody’s mother who cared enough to capture the moment.

“Alright, we’re going to be late, Mum,” Imogen said, as Mrs. Novak managed to get the camera out of Ainsley’s grasp. “Can we go?”

“Let me just get my purse,” she said. She put the camera down on the side table and headed off. Ainsley and Imogen both glanced at it and then at each other.

“We could delete the photos,” Imogen said.

Ainsley seemed to consider it for a moment, and I wondered why they would ever want to delete those photos.

Why would they want to delete the proof of those moments that I wanted so badly to have?

Did they not understand how lucky they were? How much I wanted to be them?

I looked at the wall of photos going up the stairs.

Every child was featured equally, without any of the unbalanced “oldest child gets more attention” that existed in my house.

But as I looked around the house at all their various photos, there was one person missing from all of them.

It was like they had all collectively decided to pretend that their dad hadn’t existed, to take away any memory of him.

And I realized that if I wanted to have their lives, it didn’t just mean having the perfect mom—it meant having the worst dad too.

My parents weren’t perfect by any means, and they drove me up the wall half the time, but was this life any better?

Would I trade the imperfect family I had for another imperfect one?

I didn’t think so. And I wasn’t sure that either of these girls would trade their situation to be in my life either—both parents, but neither of them ever showing you love.

It only became clearer with every passing minute at the game that I knew nothing about soccer.

I had a basic grasp of the game: players kick ball, ball goes in net, team scores a goal.

But all the intricacies of fouls, penalty shots, what calls the refs were making, and what was okay or not were beyond me.

It was also much more violent than I was expecting, which wasn’t what I remembered it being like in gym class.

I followed Ainsley and Imogen’s lead, cheering along and yelling Sebastian’s name, and I managed to follow the score because of the giant scoreboard, but that was the extent of my participation as an audience member.

At halftime, Ainsley and I left Imogen with our stuff and went down to the concession stand.

I didn’t even know that was a thing at these games and told Ainsley that as we were pushed down the steps by the large crowd.

I couldn’t believe how many people had showed up to a soccer game on a Wednesday night, but I guess with being less than three weeks into the school year and the weather being warm, everyone had more school spirit than they would later in the year.

The crowd broke off as we reached the bottom of the bleachers and everyone split off into different directions, some headed to the parking lot to smoke or get stuff from their cars, some going inside to the bathrooms, and Ainsley pulling me toward the playground on the outskirts of the school property, where she said the concession stand ran to be out of the way.

“You’re telling me there’s an actual concession stand at these games?” I asked Ainsley. “I guess we need to step up our game at swim meets.”