I look directly at her, and she tucks her messy hair behind her ear.
“Is it because I’m a broke college student?”
She jerks, offended. “No. What the hell kind of question is that?”
A reasonable question, Miss Travels the World with a Family of Surgeons. “A fair one,” I respond to her angry glare.
“Not fair at all,” she retorts.
How do I tell her that I was a grade-A stalker and found her sister’s Facebook profile? Should I even tell her? Yes, I should, because I demand honesty from her. It’s only fair, and she’s all about being fair, right? So I should say something . . . But she’ll be mad.
How important is being fair, really? Sometimes it’s better to omit things, right? I mean, if I were wearing an ugly shirt and asked Nora if it was ugly, should she lie? Yes. Images of me wearing one of those vacation-dad shirts, the ones with the flowers on them, pop into my head. Yikes. I make a promise to myself to never be that kind of dad. I want to be a cool dad, and if Nora goes around lying about my shirts, I can’t be one.
So, no, maybe omitting is just as bad as lying.
“I found your sister’s Facebook page and I looked through it. I saw her husband and his gazillion certificates and awards. I saw your beach vacations, and your yellow bathing suit.”
Nora’s face pales, and she sits in silence.
“I saw her big house and the brand-new car he bought her, and I saw the guy who had his arms wrapped around you.”
Nora’s breath catches in her throat. I’ve truly shocked her, and after a few seconds of her blankly staring at me, she manages, “Why—why did you do that?”
“Do what? It’s Facebook, it’s public property.” I defend my stalking with the lamest excuse I could have mustered. That’s a horrible answer. And a poor excuse for being a creep.
Nora shakes her head and moves farther from me. “How long ago was this?”
“Just today, when I was waiting for you to come back.” Was it just today? Time doesn’t seem to make any sense since I met this woman.
“What else did you find?” Her hands are shaking slightly.
I look down at them, and she immediately stills them by folding them together.
“Nothing. You don’t seem to really have a Facebook of your own.”
She nods, not meeting my eyes.
And I realize something: she totally has a Facebook.
“What exactly were you hoping to find?” Her eyes are on her hands clasped in her lap.
Not so fast . . . I grab her arms and pull her back to me. She doesn’t stop me, but she does move her thighs to frame my waist.
Is dating always like this—this squeezing feeling that no matter what’s happening, there’s always something hidden around the corner waiting for your happiest moments to occur so it can crush you and take them away?
“What are you hiding?” My voice is level, unlike my head right now.
Nora shakes her head. “Why do you assume I’m hiding something?”
I roll my eyes at her and put one arm behind my head so I can get a better look of her on my lap. My other hand is resting on her leg. It feels like the only connection between us right now, like a fraying thread keeping us together. “Maybe because you are. You don’t want me to meet your sister. You have some secret Facebook page. You won’t talk about your ex-boyfriend—or any other relationships, for that matter—and you’ve shut me down when I’ve tried to understand why you hide so many things from me.”
I sigh and lift my upper body to rest my back against the headboard for more support.