Chapter 13
My hands are wrapped around a mug of tea I haven’t touched. It’s probably gone cold by now. I wouldn’t know. My fingers are numb, and everything tastes like blood and shame anyway.
Then she walks in.
Keira.
Wearing a hoodie that swallows her whole and sunglasses like she’s in hiding. At night. Because she’s subtle like that. Always has been. Like a drunk elephant on a trampoline.
She slides into the seat across from me, like she’s expecting me to lunge at her across the table. I don’t. I just blink. My throat’s too tight to speak, so I nod. It’s either that or scream.
“Hi,” she says. Voice small. So small.
I nod again. Still no screaming. Points for me.
“Thank you for inviting me. ”
I want to laugh in her face. Thank you? Like this is brunch. Like I’m doing her a favour.
But I’m here, aren’t I? I guess maybe I am.
She shrugs, picks at her nail polish like she’s fifteen again and worried I’ll yell at her for stealing my shoes.
“I figured I owed you that.”
There’s a long, aching pause, so quiet I can hear the guy in the booth behind me unwrap his sandwich. Turkey, probably. Smells dry.
I swallow hard. “When did it start?”
Her head jerks up. The blood drains from her face so fast, I swear I can hear it.
“Leni—”
“I’m not asking to hurt myself.” Lie.
“I’m asking because I need to know. Was it before you turned eighteen?”
Her mouth opens. Closes. Opens again. I see the panic. It flares across her face like a flashbang. And I hate myself a little for knowing exactly what it looks like on her. For still reading her that easily.
“No,” she says. “Never.”
I close my eyes. Relief hits me in the stomach like a medicine ball. But it’s tangled with something worse. Disgust, maybe. Rage. I don’t know what to call this thing that keeps clawing up my throat.
“But you were still a teenager,” I say. “When it started.”
She nods.
“Keira,” I whisper, and my voice cracks around her name like it’s a curse. “You are just a kid.”
“I didn’t mean to hurt you,” she says, watery-eyed, bottom lip trembling like a damn cartoon. “I- I didn’t plan it. He just... he made me feel seen.”
Seen. God.
I could laugh, if I didn’t want to throw up.
“I’m your sister,” I say. “That’s my husband. Do you even understand what that means?”
She flinches like I slapped her. Good.
“I didn’t think you loved him anymore.”
I stare at her.
“So, what, that makes it okay?” I say. “Should I be thanking you for taking him off my hands?”
She looks down at her hands, ashamed. And I want to feel something; rage, fury, fire but all I feel is exhaustion. Like my grief crawled into my bones and set up camp there .
And then she starts talking. Her voice goes soft. Softer than I’ve ever heard it.
“It was Christmas,” she says. “You had just left for the office, and he came back inside. He was... mad. I don’t know why.
He started drinking, a lot. And that day, Mom and Dad told me they weren’t getting me a car anymore.
I was pissed. I stormed out. Michael was still outside, waiting for his cab. ”
She pauses. I say nothing. I can’t.
“I sat down next to him, and we just started talking. He said he missed you. I told him college sucked. And then suddenly... I don’t know, we were kissing.”
I suck in a breath, sharp and shaky.
“I pushed him away. Immediately. I swear. And he left. But I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I thought he’d tell you. That you’d hate me. I couldn’t stand it. So I went to your house that night to apologize. You were already gone. I didn’t know.”
Another pause.
“One thing led to another,” she says. “We ended up in bed.”
I close my eyes. My skin prickles. Everything inside me folds in on itself like origami soaked in gasoline.
“Did you feel forced?” I ask. The words nearly choke me on the way out .
“No.” Her voice is so quiet it’s almost a ghost. “I know you want to blame him. But it was my fault, too. I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”
She starts crying, full body sobs, hands shaking. And me?
I just sit there. Watching her.
Because part of me does blame her. And part of me still wants to protect her. And most of me doesn’t know how the hell I’m supposed to live in a world where both of those things are true.
“Stop crying,” I say.
It’s sharp. Loud enough to cut through the café hum and her ugly, hiccupping sobs.
She startles like a kicked dog. Everyone’s looking now; the guy with the turkey sandwich, the barista pretending not to eavesdrop, the couple two tables over who’ve stopped pretending to be interested in their phones.
“I mean it,” I say, low and flat. “You keep going like this, I’m getting up and walking out of here. I’ll leave, Keira. I’ll walk out of your life for good.”
She goes quiet, like someone yanked the plug. Her shoulders still heave, but the sobs taper off into jagged little breaths, like a car sputtering to a stop.
“Breathe if you need to,” I add. “But no more theatrics. You don’t get to play the broken little girl. Not tonight. ”
She presses the sleeves of her hoodie into her eyes. Nods. Her mouth is quivering, but she keeps it shut this time.
“You knew what you were doing.”
She looks up, all wounded innocence and wet cheeks, lips parting to object, but I hold up my hand. A warning. One word and I’m gone.
“You knew. And the whole bullshit about ‘it just happened’ ?” I shake my head, voice shaking now too, but not with sympathy. “It didn’t. That’s not how cheating works. It’s not gravity. It doesn’t just happen. ”
She flinches again. But I keep going, because I can’t stop. Not now. Not when it’s finally pouring out.
“You don’t fall into someone’s bed like it’s an open manhole. You don’t trip and end up on top of your sister’s husband. You chose this. Every step of it.”
Her lips press together like she’s trying to hold in another cry, and I swear if she cries again, I’ll-
“I don’t care if he said he missed me. I don’t care if you were mad at Mom and Dad. I don’t care if your car got taken away or your life was crumbling or the stars aligned and he looked at you just the right way. You. Chose. Him.”
A silence falls between us, heavy like smoke. She’s shaking again, but quieter this time. I don’t know if it’s from grief or shame or just the cold truth finally sinking in.
And I sit there, watching her.
Because yeah, I blame her. And yeah, I blame him more. But right now, Keira’s the one in front of me. And someone has to hold the weight.
I stare at her, and something itches in the back of my brain. A flicker of memory, something she said earlier.
"You called him Michael, " I say.
She looks confused for half a second, like she doesn’t understand why that matters, and then her face drains. Oh, she knows.
I lean forward, elbows on the table, voice steady in that way people get right before they completely lose it.
"Did you get the same speech?" I ask. "How he hates that name? How it sounds too formal, too cold? How only people who don’t really know him call him that?"
Keira says nothing.
"And yet," I go on, "coming from your lips, he liked it."
I don’t say it with venom. Not even bitterness. Just... disappointment. That hollow, echoing kind that feels like standing in an empty house after everyone’s left .
Her face crumples like wet paper. But I don’t flinch. I’ve given her enough softness for a lifetime.
"You don’t accidentally get that close to someone," I say, my voice quieter now. Not soft, just drained. "You don’t learn his secrets. His little preferences. You don’t call him Michael unless you’re meant to feel like the exception."
She tries to speak again, but I hold up a hand.
"Don’t say it just happened. Don’t tell me it was a mistake. You knew what you were doing. You might not have meant for it to go that far, but you knew it was wrong. And you still did it anyway."
Keira swallows hard, like the truth is made of glass and she's been chewing it this whole time.
I sit back; my hands suddenly cold against the mug. The tea’s definitely cold now. Fitting.
"Are you still with him?" I ask. Voice like a blade under velvet. I don’t blink.
She flinches like I slapped her.
Her mouth trembles. “No. Not… not anymore. I-I haven’t seen him since yesterday. I swear.”
I just nod. Slowly.
“Good,” I say. “Because if you were, I wouldn’t be here. I wouldn’t be speaking to you. ”
Her eyes widen. There’s fear there now. Real fear. Not of me, but of the distance that just stretched wide between us, and the knowledge that she may never close it again.
I stand. She doesn’t follow.
“For what it’s worth,” I say, not looking at her, “I hope someday you grow into the woman you think you already are.”
Then I walk out. No dramatic exit. No storming off.
Just me, the scent of peppermint wax in my nose, and the sound of my own heartbeat getting a little quieter with every step away from her .