The Cousins(31)

I’m shaking all over as I walk blindly forward, Milly by my side. My throat has closed to a pinprick, and I can barely squeeze the words out. “You heard me.”

“Aubrey Elizabeth. How dare you speak to me like that? Apologize immediately.”

I almost do. The urge to please him is so strong, ingrained over seventeen years, that despite everything, I feel a desperate need to make the anger in his voice go away. Even though I’m the one who should be angry. And I am, but it’s not the hard, relentless anger he deserves. It’s the kind that will crumble into a pathetic apology if I stay on the phone. “No,” I manage to choke out. “I’m hanging up now. I don’t want to talk to you anymore.”

I disconnect and immediately power down my phone. Then I stuff it in my pocket, drop like a stone onto the grass, and cover my face with my hands.

There’s a rustling sound beside me, and a tentative hand pats my arm. “Wow. That was—wow. I did not see that coming. Any of it,” Milly says. I don’t reply, and she adds, almost to herself, “I didn’t think you had it in you to go off like that.”



I lower my hands with a reproachful look. “Really? So you’re basically agreeing with my father that I’m a do-nothing loser? Thanks a lot, Milly.”

My cousin’s eyes widen in horror. “No! Oh God. I didn’t mean that. I just…I’m sorry. I’m bad at comforting people. Obviously.” She’s still patting my arm mechanically, and she’s right. There’s nothing even a little bit comforting in the gesture. “Uncle Adam is a rat bastard and I’m glad I threw up on him when I was two,” she adds, and I snort.

“You did?”

“According to my mother.”

“He’s never mentioned it. Not that I’m surprised. We don’t talk about anything that might make him look less than perfect. I wasn’t supposed to say anything about this.” A lump forms in my throat, and I swallow against it. “It’s bad enough that he cheated on my mom. But he did it with her. Coach Matson has been my coach since middle school! I idolized her. I wanted to be her. I even…God, I’m the idiot who introduced them.”

The image has been playing across my mind all month: me dragging Dad to the edge of the pool sophomore year, insisting he finally meet the woman who’d been training me for years. Standing proudly between my young, pretty coach and my handsome, distinguished father, pleased to be the connecting thread between the two people I admired most in the world. It never occurred to me that they’d think of one another in any way except in relation to me.

There are a lot of shitty things about this situation, but one of the worst is realizing that neither of them ever thought much about me at all.



Tears start pooling in my eyes and slipping down my cheeks. I haven’t cried properly since my father broke the news last month. At first I was too shocked to react, and then—like I’ve been doing my whole life—I took my cue from him. He didn’t want to talk about it, so I didn’t. He acted like this was something that happened to our family, instead of something he caused. Like it was a random natural accident that nobody could have predicted or avoided. It took being three thousand miles from him to realize how colossally messed up that was.

I take a deep breath, trying to get myself back under control, and end up letting out a loud, choked sob. Then another one.

“Oh. Oh no. It’s, um, going to be all right,” Milly says as I cry harder. “I have a tissue in here somewhere, hang on….” I can hear her rooting around in her bag, and then her voice turns a little desperate. “Okay, it’s not a tissue, it’s one of those cloths you use to get smudges off your sunglasses. But it’s nice and soft. And clean, mostly. Do you want it?”

I take it from her with a strangled half laugh and swipe it across my eyes. “You weren’t kidding. You’re terrible at this.”

“At least I made you laugh. Sort of.” Milly takes one of my hands in both of hers and gives it a decisive pump. It feels more like she’s running for office than consoling me, but I let it slide. “I’m really sorry,” she says earnestly. “None of this is your fault. It’s totally normal for you to want people you care about to get along.”

“Did they ever,” I say hollowly. “The worst thing is, I thought they liked each other because of me. Pathetic, huh?”

“Yes,” Milly says. I give her another reproachful look until she adds, “I assume you’re talking about Uncle Midlife Crisis and Coach Home-wrecker? Ugh, he’s such a gross cliché, isn’t he? And she’s no better.”



I blink back fresh tears. “Everything is a mess. I feel so guilty that it’s hard talking to my mom like normal, even though she’s said a million times that this has nothing to do with me. I stopped swimming with my team because I couldn’t stand being around Coach Matson. I don’t think I can ever go back. I can’t imagine what meets will be like next year once the team finds out. Nobody at school knows yet.”

Including Thomas. I’d wanted to tell him, but the timing never felt right. I’m not sure what it says about our relationship that I told the cousin I’ve known for less than two weeks before the boyfriend I’ve known four years, but it probably explains the silent breakup we’re having.