Amy shook her head. “No. But he’s always wanted them.” She shrugged. “This isn’t the way we wanted things to happen, but we don’t regret the fact that we want to be together.”
“Did either of you think about the guy’s poor wife!” She’d held back her feelings on this aspect of the fiasco long enough.
“Yes,” Amy said quietly. “That’s why we were trying to keep this hidden until after he’d left her. Then we were going to pretend that we started seeing each other after he was separated.”
Gwen sat back, disgusted with her sister. “Does she know yet, or has the chickenshit even told her? And how do you know he’s even telling you the truth?”
“Because he is,” Amy said defiantly. “There are special circumstances that I can’t tell you about.”
Gwen shook her head. “The only circumstances I need to know is that he’s a liar and a cheat, and if he cheated on his wife, he’ll damn sure cheat on you. Didn’t you learn anything from my experience with Dickweed?”
Liam tried to intervene. “Gee—”
Gwen waved him off. “No, fuck that, Li. I’m sick of Miss Holier-Than-Thou-I-Go-To-Church-And-Show-Off-For-Mom-And-Dad being held up as some stellar example of perfection!” She turned on Amy. “Let me tell you something. That poor woman, if the shit weasel even goes through with leaving her and doesn’t leave you hanging out to dry by yourself, is in for a lot of heartache and pain. Loss of trust. Wondering what was wrong with her that she wasn’t good enough for him.” She felt her own pain and anger from her divorce well up, mix with her fresh pain over losing Tim and Jack, and explode with a force that would make Mt. St. Helens look like a soggy, waterlogged firecracker.
Gwen felt her misery grow in proportion to her rage. “She’s going to go through a lot of anger and pain. She’s going to look at every man she meets in the future and wonder not if, but when, he’s going to lie to her and break her heart. She’s going to date guys who might be great, but hold them to a higher, possibly impossible standard of perfection. She’s going to doubt everything they tell her and look at herself in the mirror every morning and wonder what the fuck is so wrong with her that she can’t keep a guy.” She felt the tears rolling down her face and was vaguely aware that Liam had stood and grabbed her arm.
She shook him off and towered over her sister. “She’s going to wonder why you get to have what she wanted, what’s so special about you that wasn’t special about her. She’s going to feel like shit about herself all because you two couldn’t wait to do the decent thing and he couldn’t keep his pants zipped!”
Amy’s face grew red, but she didn’t say anything in her defense. She didn’t look up at Gwen.
For some reason, that infuriated Gwen even more. “Now you’re going to have a baby with this guy? A guy you can’t even trust not to go running around on you later?”
“He’s not like that,” Amy firmly said.
“No, I’m sure he’s not.” Gwen’s voice dripped with sarcasm. “I’m sure he’s Mr. Perfect, and his wife’s a total whackjob, right? He would neeever cheat on you because you’re so speeeecial,” Gwen said. In full attack mode, she wasn’t about to back down until she’d had her say. Or run out of steam. “Well, let me tell you something. I don’t envy you. I really don’t. Because you’re in for a world of pain and misery. Maybe right now everything with him seems rosy and beautiful, but once a cheat, always a fucking cheat. And I’m going to be the first to say I told you so when he tosses you aside!”
“Gwen!” Liam barked. “Enough, sweetie.”
Gwen swiped at her tears. Amy still wouldn’t look up, but she spoke. “I’ll be out of here this morning after I change clothes. Thank you for picking me up last night, and thank you for loving me enough to be worried about me when I was gone. I’m sorry I put you both through that.” She pushed back from the table and left the kitchen.
Gwen took a few deep breaths before she started sobbing and crumpled into Liam’s arms.
“It’s okay, Gee,” he softly said as he held her. “Richard can’t hurt you anymore.”
“I loved them,” she sobbed. “I loved them both. What am I supposed to do now?”
He knew who she meant. “I don’t have any easy answers for you, sis. But taking your pain out over Tim and Jack on Amy isn’t going to help you or her. Her guy isn’t Richard.”
“He’s going to use her like he’s used his wife.”
“Maybe, but you don’t know that for sure.”
She cried for a few more minutes before retreating to her room. She didn’t come out until after Amy had left in a cab less than an hour later. She regretted blowing up at her sister and knew she shouldn’t have done it.
But why did it feel so good to finally get that old crap out of her system?
Chapter Twelve
Gwen looked over Liam’s shoulder as he hacked into Amy’s online calendar. He pointed. “There.”
“Can you e-mail that to me?” Gwen felt a little bad about the invasion of privacy, but only a little. She’d tried calling Amy several times over the past three days, reaching her voice mail every time.
All she’d received in return was a brief e-mail from Amy telling her the apology was accepted.
Gwen felt bad. She deserved the silent treatment from Amy after the things she’d said to her, but she wanted to say them to her in more than just a recorded voice mail. She wanted to try to rebuild a bridge that apparently was never really there in the first place.
Amy wouldn’t talk to Liam, either. He’d received a frantic call from their mother a day earlier, telling them Amy had arrived with a couple of friends and a moving truck while their father was at work.
Apparently Amy didn’t drop the bomb about the baby or her secret guy on the side. She only told their mother that with Liam gone, she’d received an offer to be roommates with a friend of hers who needed the financial help to keep her house from going into foreclosure.
Gwen didn’t approve of the lie, but she did admire Amy’s ingenuity. It was a story their mother might not like, but she couldn’t guilt-trip Amy too terribly much, considering the supposed circumstances.
In a way, Gwen felt sorry for her mom. She was now stuck at home, alone, with their father.
Gwen wanted to have a relationship with her sister. She’d eat crow, apologize like hell, and bite her tongue clean in two if she had to. And if this was the only way she could get Amy to sit still for a few minutes to talk to her, so be it. She wanted to apologize to her sister and try to make amends. This was no time to be petty.
This was a time for her to man up, so to speak, put the past behind her, and be there for her sister.
Liam nodded, brought up another window, and a second later Gwen’s BlackBerry buzzed. “There you go,” he said.
“That’s this afternoon?”
“Yep.”
“Am I doing the right thing?”
He shrugged. “If I thought I could shake some sense into her myself, I would.”
“You going to be okay by yourself?”
“Yeah. I’ll only slow you down. Call me when you know what’s up, okay?”
She kissed his cheek. “Yeah.”
All the way to the doctor’s office, Gwen wondered how to handle this. She wanted her sister back, wanted her in her life.
Missed her like hell.
No, they didn’t always get along the greatest growing up, but she was usually an ally, or at the very least a buffer, against their parents now that they were adults. Despite the angry words she’d tossed at Amy in the kitchen the other morning, there were times she could remember Amy trying to step in when their mom or dad started in on Gwen over her career choice.