If Only You (Bergman Brothers, #6)(8)

I try to move my thoughts along, past empathizing with someone who’s managed to destroy so cavalierly what so few dream of ever attaining, someone who really is despicable. But the truth is, my thoughts have been on Sebastian Gauthier a lot the past few weeks.

Because he treated me differently, how no one else has. Not just at first, when he didn’t recognize me, when he teased and provoked me, but when he recognized me, too. Even then, he treated me like a grown woman who could handle his assholery, not some fragile, delicate thing to handle with care. He didn’t let up. He dug in. He said something that cut and burrowed deep: It’s easy to overlook someone who clearly wants to be overlooked. If you’d hoped for a different response, I’d suggest revising that attitude.

I almost told him, I know, for crying out loud—I know that if I want to be seen differently, I have to do things differently. I just don’t know how to do it. Except frustrating tears tightened my throat, and the words wouldn’t come.

That’s how I’ve felt so often lately, like I’m on the cusp of telling a lot of people a lot of things that are long overdue, but the truth is a knot in my throat that I can’t untangle, the force to tug it free something I can’t yet find inside myself.

I want to discover that courage and those words. I want to stick up for myself and say that I deserve the chance to grow into who I’m capable of being—on and off the pitch. I want to be recognized as a grown, desirable bisexual woman, a concept that seems wholly foreign to my social circle and siblings, despite the fact that a lot of them have single friends who are interested in dating. I want a damn open container and a glass of wine with dinner. I want to be seen, not as the baby at the end of the table, but as someone with a mind and a voice in our family.

I want to push myself, to stretch and reach and shine a little bit. And I want my family to believe in me, to be the first people to see that possibility.

Is that too much to ask for?

“Absolutely not.” Dad’s voice ruptures my thoughts. It’s unusually serious and low, like thunder rumbling through the air.

I glance toward the other end of the table, where Ren and Dad engage in a quiet stare off. Dad’s where Ren and I get our red hair, though my father’s is now silvered at the temples, streaked with white. His green eyes, which he gave me, are narrowed on my brother.

Ren’s face leans toward Mom’s bone structure, but he’s built so like Dad, broad, solid, and tall. Also like Dad, Ren is a giant teddy bear of a man, which is why it’s very odd that they’re holding each other’s gaze while tension radiates between them.

“What’s going on?” I ask.

Mom glances my way, hesitating before she says, “Don’t worry, ?lskling. It’s just a bit of an ongoing conversation about family…decisions.”

“Ongoing?” I frown. “Why don’t I know about it?”

Oliver, the sibling closest to me in age who I’m closest to emotionally as well, gives me a guilty look that makes me feel like I’ve been kicked in the stomach. He’s known about whatever this is, and even he hasn’t told me.

“It’s nothing you need to worry about,” Dad says, sitting back in his seat as he wraps a hand around his beer. “That’s why.”

My cheeks heat, and the first warning of tears pricks my eyes. “It’s about our family, and I don’t need to worry about it?”

No one seems to process how hurtful that is. Mom sets her hand over Dad’s and pats it softly. Freya is almost Mom’s twin beside her, with their shoulder-length white-blond hair, her pale blue eyes locked on Dad in concern. Theo pulls away from nursing and starts to cry. Aiden gently takes him from Freya, then stands, bouncing Theo in his arms, though not before softly squeezing Freya’s shoulder, his thumb brushing tenderly along her neck.

Frankie sets a hand on Ren’s back and rubs.

Gavin’s arm stretches protectively across the top of Ollie’s chair.

Viggo is uncharacteristically quiet, picking at the label on his beer bottle.

“What’s going on?” I ask, my voice sharp. “Why is everyone acting weird?”

Linnie stops coloring and looks up at me. “Who knows. Adults always act weird.”

“I’m an adult!”

Linnie frowns and tips her head. “You are?”

God, out of the mouth of babes.

Tears well in my eyes. I know I’m sensitive. I know I might be overreacting, but I’m so tired of feeling like this. I’m hurt that, once again, I’m being treated as less than a full member of this family. I’m sure my parents and siblings mean well. And I imagine whatever’s going on must be so difficult, they want to shield me from it.

That last thought is the only thing that keeps me from exploding, after bottling up this frustration for far too long.

I blink away almost-spilled tears and force a smile my niece’s way. Appetite ruined, I scoot my plate of half-eaten food aside, then draw the Pokémon coloring book closer. “What color are Pikachu’s cheeks, Linnie?”

As she answers me and I fill those circles bright cherry red, the room settles around me, the predictable order of our family’s world restored.

At least, I imagine, that’s how my family sees it.

I, on the other hand, make a promise to myself, that somehow, some way, I’m going to make sure that soon, finally, my family, my team—everyone—will see just how much has actually changed.