1. Calliope #2
How could she possibly remain in contact with anyone who hurt me the way he did?
“No.” She shakes her head. Which makes me pause. She’s unnaturally still before she rolls her eyes up and flicks away a tear.
The ice queen doth have emotions.
I’m speechless.
“He cheated on—”
“We don’t speak her name here,” I hiss like a creature of hell.
“He cheated on her with another—”
“Coworker?” I cut her off again, unable to help myself.
“And got her pregnant,” she finishes.
I wait for it. The vindication.
Only I feel nothing.
I’m picturing her instead. The one I don’t get to name. Finding out the same way I did. Probably calling her best friend. I tried to warn her. She called me crazy.
“Crazy,” I parrot the word back to the woman who won’t hear it. My voice doesn’t have the heat I want it to have. “Almost like I told you that’s what he did to me. Instead you all believed him that I was fucking crazy.”
The words echo. They still don’t feel like winning.
“I believed him that you were crazy,” she says, her voice struggling to get the words out.
I miss a step. The flashlight beam jerks across the wall. For a second the sphinx looks alive. Breathing. Watching. I stop walking.
Not because of the sphinx.
Because she said it out loud.
I swing my flashlight back on her. “You taught me I could be standing in a burning building and you’d ask someone else if there was smoke,” I say, holding my head high.
Calypso’s mouth opens. Then closes. For once, she doesn’t have something smart ass to say.
Good. I hope it hurts.
“Callie—”
“No.” The word comes out sharper than I intended. “You don’t get to make that face now.”
Her shoulders flinch.
“Three years, Calypso.” I remind her how long she’s been gone. Though if I’m honest she left me at eighteen. I’d get a gif here, an emoji there, or my favorite a video clip. Just not her.
“I hurt you. We all did.”
“I don’t forgive you,” I say and it costs me because I have to breathe through my next words. “But you can earn it.” Because damn it, I miss my twin.
“Okay,” she whispers and there is a vastness of space still between us.
She picked him. That’s the part that still stings even after all these years. And it’s been three years. I’m not healed, not by a long shot. But I’m healed enough to see if my sister shows up instead of just saying she will.
“How?”
“This.” I swing my flashlight down the hall toward the lecture rooms. Then back to the sphinx gallery. “Up.”
“That’s it?” she asks, following into step beside me.
“That’s it as long as you don’t poke fun at me.” I flash her in the face again just because it pleases me. She deserves the wince. Maybe less now than before. I’ll work on that. “I’m not crazy.”
The words leave my mouth too fast. Too practiced. Like I’ve said them a thousand times. Which I have.
Like maybe the person I’m trying hardest to convince is me.
“You were right about James and—” she stops herself before the flashlight reaches her eyes. “I just didn’t see it. I didn’t see how terrible he was.”
“You couldn’t just take my word for it?”
“No,” she admits uncomfortably, as we take the steps to the top floor. “He was, he was a good guy I just didn’t see it.”
Yeah, neither did I.
I never should have said anything. Not about thinking I saw a vampire, and not about James cheating on me. I should have walked away and never looked back. I get that no one wanted to believe me about seeing a blood sucker, but James?
She didn’t believe me.
Everyone else I got. Mom. Dad. The neighbors. The random people who thought they knew better. Because how could a good man cheat? And besides he’s a good man. I should forgive, forget and move on. At least that’s what they said I should do.
Fine. Whatever.
But Calypso?
We shared a womb.
She should have believed me.
“Anything weird ever happen here?”
“Like vampires?” I blurt out.
“Yeah,” she chuckles not meeting my gaze. So that she still thinks I’m crazy over.
“Nothing weird ever happens here,” I say because I don’t really want to talk about what happened all those years ago either. That’s a kind of pain that takes time to recover from. And maybe that’s when the rift between us started.
“Bummer.” She shivers. “It’s creepy as fuck.”
I nibble on my cheek because while she loves true crime, creepy stuff freaks her out. “We have the top floor to check, then the basement.”
“Hell no.” Her eyes go comically wide.
“It’s on my rotation.” It sure as fuck is not. I’m not even supposed to be down there ever, but some nights I can’t help it. I’ll lie and say I heard a noise. It’s all the life I usually get to live.
But tonight isn’t really about the basement.
Tonight is a quiz.
Three years of I’ll be there and I’ve got you. And where was she? Now she’s here. Fine. Let’s see what here is worth.
The basement is just the question I’m asking.
“Must I?” She looks freaked out.
“No.” I draw the word out. “But I would love the company.”
“I know what you’re doing.” She squints her kohl-lined eyes at me. “And I accept.”
Relief floods through me but I don’t sag or let her see it. Only a cold day in hell would I allow her to see that.
Besides what’s a little sibling rivalry?