Page 81 of Back for Seconds

I flashed him a sad but appreciative smile. “She’s making things right for herself right now. She walked away from Dad and hasn’t looked back.”

“Exactly. Do you think she’ll marry another cheater?” Sal tapped his fingertips against the bar, really watching me, like he wanted me to actually answer the question.

“I think she’ll do everything she can to make sure she doesn’t.” My mouth twisted feebly. “If she ever marries again.”

Sal nodded, looking older and wiser. All of his thirty-five years. The act of being wild and tough, gone completely. Sal was wild—he was reactive. But here, standing in front of me, pouring out a limoncello shot, I saw someone who had learned every lesson the hard way. Not just one or two. He’d spent his entire life scrambling through the bramble trying to find the road.

“Life is beautiful, June. You can decide at any moment that you want more and you can go out and find it.” He pushed the frosted shot glass across the bar to me. It was still ice cold. “You don’t have to live trapped in his world. Salute.”

I lifted my glass. “Salute. ”

***

Between Sal’s revelations about my father’s infidelity and shockingly poignant advice, mixed with the abundance of booze and beef sloshing around in my stomach, the restaurant took on a turtleneck-like quality. Hot and tight. I sobered up on glasses of ice water and Coke Zero while Mimi trilled out a mournful rendition of Frank Sinatra’s “My Way.” I drained my third glass of ice water only to look up to see Sal hammering me with a worried look, arms crossed over his broad chest.

“You ok, sis?” he asked, sliding me a dish of lemons across the bar. “You look clammy. Eat a lemon.”

The heavy curtains and tinkling piano music were oppressive, and even Mimi’s beautiful, smooth voice was making me feel nauseous.

“I’m trapped,” I replied quietly. Mimi’s voice floated through the French doors, accompanied by the smell of a freshly lit wax candle and rosewater perfume. “Brian has me trapped.”

Sal sucked in a breath, shaking his head. “No, June. That’s because you let him—”

“Because I loved him.” I stared wide-eyed into my brother’s disappointed face, hell-bent on being heard. “I wanted to love him forever, and everyone acts like that was the bad thing that happened. Like I was such an idiot and such a fool. But that wasn’t the bad thing. He hurt me. He lied and he hurt me, and I am still here, trying to figure out who I am with this hurt. And I’m…” I paused to catch my breath. “And I’m ready to let myself love someone else.”

“Hey.” Sal reached across the bar for me, first my hands, then my shoulders, squeezing me, shaking me gently. “June, listen to me. This is your life, kid. It’s yours, every piece of it. Every day you wake up and you make choices. You decide who and what you live for, and I don’t know where along the way you forgot that, but you need to snap out of it.”

I blinked. Once. Twice. “Snap out of it?”

He tightened his hold on me. “Yeah. Fucking snap out of it.”

Chapter 26 June

The day after Christmas

My brother’s words haunted me for the rest of the night, making sleep next to impossible. As the sun broke through the thick, milky winter clouds, I tore across town toward Brian’s house, doing double the off-season speed limit. Which, to be fair, was just ten miles per hour.

I wasn’t proud of what I was about to do. But sometimes pride had to take a backseat, didn’t it? I had no desire to be the bigger person—where would that land me? Where had it landed my mom?

Being the bigger person is a concept with a flimsy philosophical framework. Revenge is a noun.

With an awful screech, I peeled halfway into Brian’s driveway, killed the engine, and stormed out into the morning air. It was like he could feel me coming—could feel the earth shaking with each step I took across his lawn. Because before I could even place a toe on his front steps, Brian was out on the porch looking like he’d just seen the ghost of Christmas past.

“June, Merry—”

“How much?” I cut him off, my chest heaving up and down with the effort of breathing.

“What?”

“How much money do you need to fix your minivan—and how much money do you need to leave me alone for the rest of my life?”

Brian shook his head, taking the steps down to meet me on his lawn. “I’m not sure I know what you’re looking for.”

“How much, Brian?” I bit through each word. “Give me a number.”

“I’m not trying to extort you.”

I scoffed. “Oh, fuck off. I have to report to the precinct today—did you know that? Of course you do, because you filed the police report.”