Chapter 4
Chapter Four
Idon’t call him by his name.
At least not in front of other people.
Because his name has a power over me. Like the name Sarah has a power over him.
Every time I say it out loud, I flinch. As if Arrow is an incantation from olden times. A dark spell. It pricks my lips and covers them in tiny delicious paper cuts.
A spell that bites at my tongue.
I only say it when I’m all alone in my room and no one is there to witness the small spasms of my body and hear the tiny gasps that escape me.
In public though, I usually refer to him as my sister’s boyfriend or the love of my sister’s life.
So I don’t know what I’m going to call him now.
Because he’s not with my sister anymore.
He’s not my sister’s boyfriend.
How’s that possible?
How is this real life?
How am I supposed to cope with this?
So it’s during the group activity that I decide to take a drastic step.
I’ve been thinking about it ever since last night, ever since we came back from the bar and I found my roommate sleeping soundly in her bed.
Anyway, I think I’m going to do it.
I’m going to take that drastic step or I’ll go crazy.
I’m already going crazy during the group activity.
Which is gardening by the way.
Because it’s Saturday and at St. Mary’s, we plant gardenias on Saturdays.
It’s in the school crest and it’s there because gardenia represents purity and innocence. It has an inherent goodness to it. So it’s basically an example for us girls. Bad girls, I mean.
To become good and leave behind our rule-breaking ways.
But that’s not the only thing that gardenias represent.
“Secret love,” Poe tells me while clipping dead leaves. “It also represents secret love.”
“Yup. They just don’t know it.” Callie snickers, looking at the teachers loitering around, keeping an eye on us; Miller is one of them.
“Which is so weird.” Wyn shrugs. “Because you can just Google it.”
Secret love.
I’m growing secret love.
I could laugh at this.
I should laugh at this.
It’s funny, isn’t it? It’s a joke.
The universe is kidding.
The girl in secret love is growing secret love.
How tragic and poetic and totally not funny at all. And somehow it gives me the strength to make the decision. “I wanna call my sister.”
Because I need to know what happened.
I need to know what was so horrible that they would break up when they were on the verge of getting married.
I need to know.
But the thing is that I can’t call my sister.
I don’t have the privilege of making outgoing calls yet. But then, I have access to an illegal cell phone. Which its owner herself, Poe, reminds me about.
“You can totally use it,” she tells me and Callie nods for emphasis.
Wyn nods too, in fact.
I think it’s because they have sensed that something is up.
Moody silences after the press conference video; disappearing in the bar and then returning with a pale, shocked face will tell people that.
But like that day in the classroom when they gave me space and let me keep my secrets, they do the same now too. They don’t ask questions.
So I find myself inside the third-floor bathroom, with Poe’s illegal phone in my hands, while they stand guard at the door.
Tightening my chunky sweater around myself, I psych myself up to dial my sister’s number.
I tell myself that I can do this.
I can call my sister.
I mean yes, we haven’t talked in months and I don’t usually call her or email her, except on her birthday and special occasions when I send her cards and gifts, because she doesn’t like when I bother her.
But this is an emergency, right?
A breakup is an emergency and I wanna talk about it. I wanna ask her how she’s doing.
I can ask her that, can’t I?
She’s my sister, for God’s sake.
Even though we’re different.
We’re so, so different and she doesn’t like me very much.
But I absolutely love her and admire her.
Like I loved and admired my mother, who was also very different from me. The only thing is that my mother – as exasperated as I made her – loved me back.
My mother was a highly educated college professor who brought up two daughters all on her own after her husband left her. Until her heart gave way and she died suddenly, leaving us to be raised by her closest friend whom she’d always been in touch with, Leah.
But my mother had been a planner and along with her updated will, she also left us both some money for college.
Sarah is very much like her, actually. Ambitious, driven, beautiful.
Back when we were kids, I idolized my sister.
I idolized her beauty, her straight shiny hair.
I’d follow her around with my toys in tow. I’d ask her to play with me, play with my dolls.
She was my big sister. She was my best friend by default.
Or she should’ve been.
But she never thought so. She always found me annoying, a nuisance. An overenthusiastic puppy, I think. Well, she described me as such to one of her friends because I wouldn’t leave them alone.
That was super hurtful. I think I cried.
But when I grew up, I understood why.
Why Sarah never liked me. It’s because she’s perfect.
She’s beautiful. She’s a straight-A student. She is popular. She is obedient. She follows the rules. She’s smart and intelligent. She’s practical, unemotional. She has a great job.
Whereas me, I’m the opposite of that.
Even though I have freckles and my hair is savage and wild and my golden eyes are witchy, I look exactly like my sister.
But that’s where the similarities end.
I never had a lot of friends. I can barely pass a subject, let alone score perfect As. I don’t even think I’m going to college, let alone getting a great job. My only ambition right now is to run away and live somewhere else so I don’t try to steal my sister’s boyfriend.
Not to mention I don’t even want to be perfect.
I don’t want to be like her or all the perfect people out there. Perfection intimidates me. All the rules intimidate me.
All I’ve ever wanted is to be myself, however flawed and imperfect that may be.
And all I’ve ever wanted is for my imperfection to be somehow perfect for him.
For her boyfriend.
So yeah, why would she like me?
On top of being completely different from her, I’m secretly betraying her. Her hatred for me is totally warranted.
But this isn’t about me and her and how different we are.
It’s about him and her.
So I take a deep breath and dial the number that I’ve memorized because we’re sisters. We should remember each other’s numbers by heart. I’m pretty sure she doesn’t think so but it’s okay.
I chew on my thumb – which Sarah completely hates – as I wait for her to pick up.
Pick up, pick up, pick up.
A few rings later, I hear a click and her smooth, sophisticated voice. “Hello?”
A breath whooshes out of me.
It’s my sister.
My sister.
My flesh and blood. My best friend. Or at least, I wish.
“Hello?” Sarah goes again. “Hello? Who is it?”
“Sarah?” I say in a hoarse voice before clearing my throat. “Uh, it’s… it’s Salem.”
For a few seconds, she doesn’t say anything.
But I know we’re still connected; I can hear things in the background, white noise from wherever she is.
“Salem?”
Her voice is full of disbelief and I get that. I’m probably the last person, no definitely the last, she was expecting to hear from.
“Yes,” I say into the phone. “It’s me. Uh, hi.”
I chew on my nail again after that lame greeting. Like things are normal. Like I call her every day and I live in the regular world instead of being at St. Mary’s where they have a hundred pages worth of rules about making a simple phone call.
“Hold on a second,” she says.
Then I hear her murmuring something to someone before I feel her walking. Her high heels click-clack on the floor that sounds tiled until the sounds around her fade and her voice comes out clearer. “How… Where are you calling from?”
“Uh, from a phone?” I say nervously, spitting out the cuticle that I’d accidentally chewed off my thumb.
Again, lame.
But God, she freaks me out. My sister freaks me out.
“Are you trying to be funny right now?” she snaps.
“No, I –”
“Oh God,” she breathes as if to herself.
“What?”
“You’re not at St. Mary’s, are you? You ran away. You finally ran away.”
That was a shock to her, what I did that night: trying to run away with one hundred and sixty-seven dollars.
“Do you have any idea what kind of position this puts me in? That woman is going to be my mother-in-law, Salem. I’m marrying into that family and my sister is stealing from them.
How can you be so selfish? So freaking thoughtless.
And after everything that Leah has done for us.
Everything. You know what, I don’t even care.
I don’t care what you do. I’m washing my hands of you. ”
I completely understood her anger. I did put her in a bad position, even though I was running away to keep her relationship safe from my witchy presence.
And I completely understand her shock now and that’s why I jump to reassure her.
“No, no, no. I’m at St. Mary’s, I swear. I’m here.” I splay a hand on my chest for emphasis like she can see it, like she can see me standing here, inside this reject, dusty bathroom.
“Then, how the heck are you calling me?” Her voice becomes shrill.
“Look –”
“I know the rules, Salem. I had Leah email me the entire welcome packet. I know you’re not allowed to call so think very carefully before you answer me.”
All right, everyone. This is my sister.
She doesn’t even go to St. Mary’s and she’s read the entire welcome packet. Whereas I never made it past the table of contents.
If there was any doubt in my mind – which there wasn’t – that Arrow and my sister belong together, it would be banished at this very second.
This gives me the strength to push through.
“I know I’m not allowed to call. Not until I earn the privilege by showing up to classes and completing my homework assignments on time. I know the rules, Sarah.”
She scoffs. “If you know the rules, then what’s your excuse for being stupid and breaking them this time?”