“Dad, is there something you’re not telling me?” I ask over the phone.

“What are you talking about?”

“You know what I’m talking about. You’re hiding something from me, aren’t you?”

“No, sweetheart, I would never—”

“Credit cards.” I cut him off before he can finish his lie. I’ve heard enough lies lately to just listen to him tell me another one.

He goes quiet. I can still hear him breathing into the phone mic, though.

“It’s true, isn’t it? You signed up for credit cards under my name? How could you?”

I pause, waiting for an explanation. I was tossing and turning last night, wondering how I ended up with so many liars in my life.

Maybe it’s true what people say, that you end up with someone who’s a lot like your parent. Which means I’m screwed, because someone like Dad makes for a shitty partner.

I saw firsthand how much Mom hated what Dad did to her, hiding his bad alcohol habit from her and spending all his money—our money—on booze.

Sure, he loved her. He quit drinking when she was sick, and he stayed by her bedside at the hospital whenever he wasn’t working.

But it was too late to change my mind by then. I’d already decided to never get involved with men like Dad.

Love isn’t all you need. Sometimes, love isn’t enough.

After probably one solid minute of silence, Dad says, “Piper, sweetheart, I was so sad about your mom’s death, and so stressed out about all the bills, and I was weak. I’m so so—”

“Save it, Dad. I’ve heard enough.” I hang up on him.

Damn it!

I’m so angry I want to punch something. But if I throw my phone across the room, then I’d just be angry and phone-less, since I have no money to buy a replacement. And if I hit the wall, I might wake up Carly and George in the next room,.

They’ve already been so nice to me, picking me up yesterday and letting me sleep in the living room of their one-bedroom apartment indefinitely. I’d be homeless without them, so it’s probably not a good idea to bother them too much.

I grab the pillow, which smells like Carly’s favorite detergent, and I hit the sofa bed with it, over and over and over again. Finally, I run out of energy. My arms are sore, I’m panting, and my hair is a mess.

McClaw watches me from the other side of the room, looking at me suspiciously with his bright green eyes.

“Stop judging me,” I tell him.

It’s pretty bright here in the living room. The big sliding glass doors that lead to the balcony let in a lot of sunlight. It turns McClaw’s pupils into two vertical lines, making him look evil.

Still, when I call his name and lightly pat my own thighs, he comes over and curls up on my lap. “Sorry, McClaw,” I say as I run my palm over his soft orange fur.

I feel sorry for him, having to move around so much just because I’m so incompetent at adulting. I should be supporting myself, instead of being reliant on my best friend and my boyfriends.

I mean, literally, before Carly moved out, the plan was for me to move in with Mark, and then I discovered the cheating. On top of that, up until the fight with Raphael, I was supposed to live for free in his rental apartment.

It’s totally weak. And pathetic. I’m failing at life.

Still, it annoys me when Raphael treated me with pity whenever I mentioned my money troubles. Well, maybe it wasn’t so much the way he treated me, as much as the way he looked at me.

Maybe I’m reading too much into things. I don’t know. It doesn’t matter anyway now. I shouldn’t care.

He’s a liar.

Everything between us has been based on lies. I don’t even know what’s real anymore, or if any of it was ever real.

Maybe I could’ve forgiven his initial lie to me if that was the only one he told, even if it was about cancer. We didn’t even know each other, after all.

But he even lies to his awesome family. So what chance do I have to get him to be honest with me?

After everything we’ve been through, after I gave him my virginity, I don’t even know why we had to pretend to be engaged in the first place.

How am I supposed to trust him?

It hurts, almost physically, when I think about Raphael—which is to say, all the time. It’s like there’s something wrapped really tightly around my chest, compressing my lungs and making it hard to breathe.

I miss him.

But I need to stay strong.