Chapter Fifteen
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Is it miscommunication if he’s being SO clear?
Fox
Relief is not a strong enough word for the emotion it’s meant to describe. Six little letters to tackle the sensation of a weight lifted, a freedom restored, a worry gone. It’s not nearly enough, but it’s all I have to offer, as insufficient as it is.
“That’s such a relief,” I tell Poem, anxiety for the state of her bank account sliding off my shoulders as I slump into my chair opposite of where she sits, primly hugging the tip jar I made for her earlier today. The apparently useless tip jar.
The irony that the tip jar is useless in part because of me is not lost on me. I regularly donate to the goodwill fund that is being put toward her now, both personally and as a business. I’ve ruined my own gesture with a different, less public gesture.
I’m glad I didn’t put the sticker gems on the jar like I wanted to, further wasting my own time.
“Yes, Captain Obvious, it is a relief.” Her eyes narrow, and her head tilts, a lock of honey falling over her exposed collarbone.
I glare at that hair—at that collarbone. At that temptation.
“I don’t know why you’re relieved, though,” Poem continues.
My brows lower. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
“It’s not like it being free is going to get me out of here faster.”
“I know that.”
“So whether or not I can pay for it doesn’t seem like something you’d normally care about.
You’re not exactly a wellspring of love and compassion for me, as evidenced by your inability to appreciate my appreciation of your person.
” Her head straightens as her nose scrunches, infuriatingly adorable. “What’s going on?”
My hands fist, both to stop me from poking her little wrinkled-up nose and to stop me from strangling her.
“I’m not a monster.” The words come rougher than I intend them to, and I work to soften my tone as I continue, “I don’t revel in your suffering, no matter what you think.
I…” I swallow and look away, not quite able to stare into her insultingly surprised eyes.
“I care about you, Poem. I don’t want to see bad things happen in your life, or to see you struggle through them.
That’s not fun for me any more than it’s fun for you. ”
A weighted silence beats for eight seconds before she replies. When she does, my gaze shoots back to her as my jaw clenches.
“It kind of is fun for me to watch you suffer and struggle, though,” she tells me. Her teeth appear to nibble at her lower lip. “Isn’t that like… our whole thing?”
I tip my head back and appeal to a higher being. Left to my own devices, she might not make it through the night.
“Is it not?” she asks. “You do your whole grumpy grumpy hates Poem man thing, and I poke at you to make it an even grumpier grumpy hates Poem man thing. That’s how we handle our differences and your insecurities about everyone loving me more than you. I thought this was established.”
When my head drops, her brows have drawn together in confusion. Actual. Genuine. Confusion.
I curse.
“No, kit,” I growl. “It is not our ‘whole thing.’ It’s not even our half thing. And my insecurities aren’t about everyone loving you more than me. Are you kidding me?”
“Uh…no?”
It occurs to me quite suddenly that she truly has no clue.
Not an iota, not an inkling, not an idea of the sort of feelings I harbor for her.
She hasn’t been teasing me about my bedroom or my looks because, on some level, she understands the sort of pointed attacks they are.
She’s not laid awake in bed at night thinking about the what ifs until she’s managed to half convince herself that some of those what ifs could be a possibility for the future, if only she felt like she could reach for them.
She hasn’t thought about me in that context at all.
Fire slashes through my belly.
I thought—at least a little bit, on some level—that our bickering had an edge of something more to it. That once I’d proven myself to not be an irresponsible moron, we’d lean more into that edge until we eventually toppled, finding ourselves tidily together and in love.
Why I thought anything with Poem would be tidy is anyone’s guess.
I’m not only stupid, I’m an idiot.
First thing’s first. “I don’t hate you,” I declare. “Stop thinking that immediately.”
Her fingers flex around the tip jar.
“Say it,” I order, needing to be sure we’re on the same page with this, at least. “Say, ‘Fox doesn’t hate me.’”
Her jaw drops in disbelief. “Are you sick?” she asks. “Do I need to call someone for you?”
Perhaps twelve steps past too intense, I repeat, “Say it, kit. I need to know that you understand.”
“I don’t, though,” she retorts. “Like, at all. What do you mean you don’t hate me?
What was all of that, then?” She waves wildly, encompassing the whole of the time that we’ve known each other.
“I’ve seen you with people you like, you know.
I know how you behave, and I know it’s nothing like the way you treat me. ”
Yes, well. I’m not infuriatingly in love with everyone else, am I?
I don’t say that, though, because as much as I want her to understand the situation, I’m not ready for that level of understanding.
“I like you,” I inform her. “Don’t be stupid. Of course I like you.” It only eats away at me every second of every day, twisting and turning under my skin, sinking into my bones until it becomes a very part of the blood that’s made there.
She scoffs. “Within just the past three days you’ve made it clear that I am not part of your family and that you do not like playing with me. What part of that screams, ‘I really like this person! So happy they’re in my life!’?”
“The whole part,” I insist. “My parents want you to be some sort of sister to me, but you’re not, and I am not going to pretend like you are.
” I grimace at the thought. “You’re Poem, my kit, not Poem, my sister, and I don’t like that they continuously try to push you into that box, deciding how our relationship works for us.
We’re…” I search for a word that feels even moderately correct.
When one does not readily supply itself, I shrug.
“We’re Fox and Poem, and I wish they’d leave it at that.
I don’t like everything you do, and I’m not always in the mood to play with you, but that doesn’t mean I hate you, and it definitely doesn’t mean I want to watch you deal with a bad situation while compounding stress about how you’re going to pay for it.
I care about you, Poem. I don’t want to see bad things happen to you. ”
“Fox and Poem,” she repeats, unbelieving. “Your kit? I’m not a baby, Fox, and you’re not my parent.”
“I’m not calling you a baby.” Because I’m calling her my baby. Much different.
“Right,” she mutters. “Well, I can see that you’ve so nicely decided for us how this relationship works. No consultation needed! Did you ever think that maybe I wanted a brother?”
I scowl. “Wolfe can be your brother.” And will be, if I have anything to say about it.
She squeezes the tip jar hard enough for the plastic to creak angrily. “I make a good sister, you know,” she grumbles. “You’ve seen how annoying I can be, so clearly I have that down, but I’m also good at the other stuff. The being-there-for-you stuff. All my siblings say so.”
I… stare.
Is she…
Is she trying to sell me on siblinghood with her? After spending most of the day talking about how attractive she finds my body?
“Sonnet and Muse love me,” she continues. “Almond will vouch for me, too. And if you want a brother’s perspective, Wolfe can tell you. I’m a good sister.”
I frown. “I know that you’re a good sister.”
Her big, gray eyes turn stormy with emotions I never thought I’d see on her—emotions I’ve only ever really seen when I look in the mirror every morning. Raw. Desperate.
Pleading.
My heart trips over itself, and my hands lift, reaching for her before I can stop them.
Her attention drops to them, and she stiffens.
My arms drop.
“You know, but you don’t want me to be yours,” she says stiffly, reining her emotions in so that when her eyes meet mine, all I see is the cool, determined gaze of a woman who’s just been told she can’t have something.
I curse.
“Poem, this isn’t a challenge. I don’t want you to be my sister.”
Cogs turn behind her irises. “You like our relationship the way it is?” she asks. “You want us to continue on in this animosity forever?”
Well… no. Ideally, the animosity would turn to something just as passionate but a whole lot more enjoyable once I’ve proven that I deserve even a speck of the goodness of her. I can’t say that, though.
My hesitation lasts long enough for Poem to make her own conclusions about what it means and decide a course of action, apparently. “I’ll show you, then,” she declares.
Apprehension buzzing beneath my skin, I dare to ask, “Show me… what?”
Brows low and determined, she studies me.
Unnerving. And terrifying. “Stop that,” I order.
“You’ll see, Foxy,” she mutters, rising from the couch. She steps around my kidney-bean shaped coffee table to stop in front of my chair, towering over me.
I lean back, far, far away from the strip of bare stomach her move puts me eye level with. “No seeing,” I protest. “Consider me blind. Go away.”
Her hands land on her hips, change rattling as surely as my nerves as the tip jar dangles from her fingers.
“Tomorrow,” she warns me. “If you think I’m annoying now, just you wait, Fox Blackwood.
I’m going to annoy you out of your stupid idiot hang-ups surrounding me, just like a real sister would.
And then, finally, you’ll let me live peacefully within the family I’ve found—our family.
This town is plenty big enough for both of us to be loved.
And if you don’t hate me… then that means there’s hope yet for you to see it. ”
“I hate everything you just said,” I retort. “Back up.”
She does, blessedly, but my nerves don’t calm, because before she turns to disappear down the hallway and into her temporary room, she bids me goodnight with a terrifying, cryptic, “Tomorrow, Fox.”
When I finally make it to my own room, I don’t sleep a wink. I lie, and I watch the numbers on my alarm clock fade and morph until tomorrow is now. The whole time, I wonder how we went from her declaring her attraction to me to her declaring her intentions to become my sister.
Where did I go wrong?
And how the heck am I going to fix it?