The Heart Principle (The Kiss Quotient #3)(29)

“Hey, Mui mui. You’re up early,” she says. From the rhythm of her words, I’m certain she’s speed-walking somewhere. (She doesn’t walk at regular human speed. I don’t think she knows how.) “It’s what, six A.M. your time?”

“I fell asleep early last night. I think I slept for almost twelve hours,” I say as I do the math in my head.

She laughs, and the sound is rich and smooth, almost musical. “I want your life.”

“No, you don’t.”

“Whatever. You’re not pulling eighty-hour weeks. I’m getting too old for this,” she says.

“You’re not old, and I thought you loved your job.” Year after year, she earns humongous bonuses from her consulting company that my mom delights in humble-bragging about to her friends.

She makes a scoffing sound. “Everything gets old after a while, but enough about me. How’s Julian? What have you two been up to?”

“He seems to be doing pretty well,” I say. “But we haven’t been up to much, not together.”

“What’s that mean?” she asks suspiciously.

I consider lying but decide there’s no point. “He wanted to see other people for a while.”

“He what?”

“He’s dating other women,” I explain, since she didn’t seem to understand the way I said it before. “He’s seeing what else is out there before he makes a commitment because he doesn’t want to have regrets.”

“Oh my God, I can’t even …” There’s a long pause before she says, “When did this start?”

“About a month ago.”

“An entire month? And you didn’t think to tell me?” she nearly shouts.

Someone is out walking their dog on the sidewalk below, so I angle myself toward my doors and mumble, “Sorry.”

“Before this happened, did you … do anything weird?” she asks.

My shoulders slump, and I stare up at the brightening sky. This is why I didn’t tell her earlier. I knew she’d think it was my fault somehow.

Was it my fault?

“Not that I know of,” I say.

“Have you been in another of your lazy phases?” she asks.

I grimace at her choice of words. “No, I haven’t. I’ve …” But my voice trails off as I remember the weeks after I returned from the tour. I barely got out of bed during those days—but not because I was “lazy.” My brain simply quit functioning. After being so busy for months, performing for enormous audiences, interacting with countless conductors, musicians, and people from the press, being on for so long, I shut down. I remember looking in my fridge, seeing food, and being completely overwhelmed, bewildered even, by all the steps that it took to get it into my stomach. For several days, I only ate Cheetos. I didn’t have the mental capacity for cooking, let alone going out with Julian, contorting my face into the proper expressions, saying all the right things to his friends, and giving him the blow jobs he loves. For weeks, when Julian wanted to hang out, I made excuses.

Maybe I really did drive him away after all.

Priscilla sighs loudly. “Oh, Anna, what am I going to do with you?”

I know it’s a rhetorical question, but I’m tempted to answer, Nothing, anyway. I don’t want or expect her to solve my problems. I don’t say anything, however. She gets mad at me when I have an “attitude,” which is what she calls it when I disagree with her or express frustration or anger or any emotion contrary to what she wants.

“Everyone really liked him for you,” she says with another sigh.

“I’m sorry. I know you got along really well with him.” She was the one who introduced us—he was an intern at her company. At family get-togethers and things, Julian and Priscilla usually sat next to each other, immersed in stock market talk, and I loved knowing that my boyfriend and sister were on good terms.

“Don’t make it sound like you dated him for me,” she says stiffly.

I almost laugh. That’s exactly why I dated him. Priscilla is my smart, beautiful, extremely successful big sister, the person I respect most in the entire world. In lots of ways, she’s more of a mom to me than my actual mom. For as far back as I can remember, I’ve been striving to earn her approval, and Julian is most definitely Priscilla approved—as well as parent approved.

I don’t know how to respond, so I just say, “Okay.”

“Don’t have an attitude, Anna,” she snaps. “He got you to come out and do things, be social, not just hole up in your apartment with your music. You were smiling and laughing more. You were happy.”

“Smiling and laughing doesn’t always mean happy.”

“I can tell when you’re happy,” she says confidently.

I shake my head quietly. There’s no way she knows when I’m happy, not when the things I say and do around her are specifically designed to make her happy.

“I’ve started seeing a therapist,” I blurt out, surprising myself with the confession. It’s something I’ve been intentionally holding back out of fear, but so much has happened. I guess I want her to know now.

“Oh. Wow. Okay,” she says. I’ve stunned her into inarticulation—a rare occurrence for socially savvy Priscilla.