Family Ties — читать онлайн бесплатно полностью

”

“Then tell me you don’t have feelings for Wren.”

“I don’t have feelings for Wren,” she parroted.

I gave her the full skeptic stare.

“I hate when you do that!”

“See right through me.”

“Then don’t lie to me.”

“You’re lying to me and to yourself.”

I twitched an eyebrow.

“This above all,” I said, “to thine own self be true.”

“And…?” she said irritably.

“It means you have to be true to who you are. And you have to be honest with yourself before you can be honest with others.” I paused to decide what to say next.

didn’t have a girlfriend?”

She frowned at the non sequitur but eventually nodded.

“I told you I needed to find myself first, to be happy on my own before I could be happy with someone else?”

“That’s what I meant. I needed to be true ‘to mine own self’ before I could be true to someone else. ‘True’ can also mean balanced. So I had to find the balance that worked for me, the truth of who I am. I guess that’s when I ‘found’ myself, if that makes sense.

“Yes, but… what’s it have to do with me?”

“Well, I think you could be more honest with yourself. You’re starting to, and telling yourself that you don’t have to be some Catholic schoolgirl—”

“I’m bringing it up to say you don’t do it much anymore.”

“I never did it in the first place,” she argued.

Mr. Skeptic made an appearance.

“You know, sometimes I really don’t like you.”

“Especially when I tell you things you don’t want to hear.”

I dialed back my skepticism, but she understood that it wasn’t gone completely.

She still didn’t give in, so I braced myself with my hands on the counter and settled in to wait her out. She was trapped, both literally and figuratively, and she knew it.

“Fine,” she said at last. “I need to be honest with myself.”

“Good,” I said without a hint of smugness. “But you already are. Starting to, at least. Like I said, you aren’t trying to be—”

“Look, I see where you’re going. Again. But will you do me a favor?”

“Fair enough.

“You’re so good with words,” she said earnestly. “Just… come up with something else.”

“Gimme a sec.” I thought about and discarded several others, mostly because they were insulting. “Okay, got it,” I said at last. “How about

‘paragon of virtue’?”

“‘Paragon’ means something perfect, right?”

She thought about it for a moment and nodded.

“Okay. So… back to my original point.