Chapter 16
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Support systems are v important.
Morana
“Mae,” I begin, face down on the bed in her sewing room yet again, “am I a loser?”
The steady hum of her machine hitches and stops. I can tell by the sound of her voice that she’s turned her full attention to me. “Um.” Moments pass without no in them. “Are we going to keep doing this? What’s going on? Also, are we going to talk about the fact you didn’t go home last night?”
I tense, pushing myself up to look at her. “Says who?”
“Crisis.”
That no good dirty snitch.
I frown. “I don’t think we need to talk about anything until you tell me whether or not I’m a loser.”
“You’re not a loser. Did you sleep with Kyran?”
Heat pours through my body as what happened and, acutely, what didn’t happen traipse through my brain. “Yes, and no.” I twist, falling back onto her bed and crossing my arms. “We…slept.”
“In the same bed?”
My lips pinch. “Yeah, well. I mean.”
Eager, she leaves her sewing machine and jumps onto the bed with me. “Are you guys finally together?”
“What? No. Don’t be crazy.”
My beautiful, kind big sister pouts, with an amount of ire. “Don’t try and tell me that you were too scared of the dark to go home, so you crawled into your ‘big brother’s’ bed for safety.” Sass incarnate, she throws up air quotes and rolls her eyes toward the ceiling.
After what’s happened these past few weeks, I can never think of Kyran as my “brother” again; therefore, I gag.
Coolly, Maelin says, “Oh good. I’m glad that ship has sailed.”
I cross my arms and let my lip jut, twinning her lip jut, but with far more duress. “This is abusive.”
“Is not,” she protests. “It’s, actually, abusive to not tell me about your love life.”
Is it? Great. In that case, since my beautiful, smart, wonderfully romantic big sister still doesn’t know about the mistakes I made behind buildings at our very own high school, I guess I’ve been abusive for a while.
Not that what happened came anywhere close to love.
But. Still. Those mistakes are secrets I intend to take to my grave.
I don’t want the sadness or distinct hurt to flash through Maelin’s eyes. I don’t want more guilt about the whole, horrible thing to weigh on my chest and suffocate me.
On the tail end of Talira’s betrayal, Maelin would’ve talked sense into me if I’d told her I’d started flirting with the school jerk to cope.
Which is why I didn’t let her. I didn’t make sense an option.
I chose having a few meaningless hours where someone was focused on me and making me feel like I wasn’t worthless over common sense.
I’m a loser.
I’m an idiot.
I’m a feeler. I let my stupid, lousy feelings dictate more than they should.
I mutter, “I don’t have a love life. Kyran likes me. Everyone knows that.”
“And you stayed over with him, after you’ve spent this past week updating his room so that it looks like a beautiful combination of the two of you.”
My mouth opens, to rebuttal, but I get stuck on her words.
A beautiful combination of the two of us?
Not even Kyran immediately saw how his room was us. And, I thought, he was the person trying to see me the most.
“What are you talking about?” I ask. “I made his room pretty and princess.”
A touch of bemusement settles in Maelin’s glass green eyes. “It’s his blue, isn’t it? And you’ve always liked pretty things like that.”
“Um.” I reference my attire: dark-wash jeans and a loose-fit black shirt that ties at the front. “Hello?”
Maelin holds my gaze, sassy brow lurching. “You’re acting like I’ve never lived with you, Mora. You collect pretty things everywhere you go. You have a million pink stuffed animals, and an entire hoard of those cutesy little horses.”
“Tokidokis,” I say.
“Yeah, those things. The ponies with the big eyes and the wings, and I’ve been with you when you’ve pointed at the backs of their mystery boxes and told me that your favorites were always the celestial ones. Clouds and stars and pastels. Pretty. Like Kyran’s room.”
I’m not sure what to do with the information that my sister knows me better than I thought.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” she asks.
“Like what?” I snip.
“Like…I’m not supposed to know this about you.”
My eyes narrow. “Well, because maybe you aren’t?
” Maybe people aren’t supposed to know things about me, because I’m a loser who keeps pushing people away any chance I get?
Maybe I pride myself in my ability to keep people at arm’s length, where it’ll hurt less to get rid of them, because the one time I didn’t?
The one time I went all-in…it stung when I was got rid of.
I’m still working to dissect the pain from my heart in the aftermath.
Not…not that I ever grouped Maelin among the people I try to keep at a distance. I guess I just…
Have I put her, my twin sister, in that box? That box of people who don’t get to know me just in case they’ll want nothing to do with me once they see how little I’m worth, even when I’m giving everything I have?
After Maelin married Zakery minutes after meeting him, I guess I’ve begun fortifying my heart against even her, because I learned that even she could love someone else more than me and leave me behind for them without all that much thought.
Even though…she hasn’t left me behind, has she?
I don’t know.
I’m being stupid, and emotional. Again.
I should get a t-shirt that says that. Except I’d probably have to get seven so I can wear it every single day of the week. Because when isn’t it accurate?
“Are you going to talk to me?” Maelin asks, voice soft and vulnerable, reminding me exactly who she talked to about Zakery the whole time she was falling hard and fast. I was right there. Reviewing literal paperwork he put together for her. Because my opinion mattered to her.
She told me, didn’t she? She said she didn’t want to let her stupid feelings lead her into another bad decision, so she trusted me to be her sense.
She gave me what I wasn’t strong enough to give her.
Grumbly, I say, “I…am possibly developing feelings for…Kyran.” My stomach revolts, so I quickly add, “But I’m against them.”
“Why?” she asks, so simply. “Kyran’s sweet, isn’t he? And you’ve liked him since before all this, haven’t you?”
“What do you mean?”
“He’s FrostPlays, right? You have those posters of him up in your room.”
I flush. “Since when do you know what’s in my room or not?
” And how long did it take her to connect the dots on FrostPlays being one of the Bachelor brothers?
I swear she didn’t know that when we started working here, and I made myself suffer through a whole never meet your idols arc alone.
“You moved out. For all you know, I’ve burned all his merch since realizing that he’s a horrible mongrel incapable of using his hamper. ”
“He encouraged your use of a tape measure when we decorated the main tree this Christmas.”
I throw my arms up, then back together, scoffing through every motion. “He did not. He ran his mouth about it the whole entire time.”
“He wouldn’t let a single one of his brothers place a single ornament without your approval.” Maelin gets all ooey-gooey and warm. “He’s violently protective of you. It’s cute.”
My hackles rise. “N-no, it isn’t.”
“Why don’t you want to develop feelings for Kyran? It’s not like it matters that he’s your brother-in-law. There’s been nothing sibling between you two.”
On edge, I eye my sister, feeling horrifically cut open right now.
She’s the rambler. I’m the closed-off one.
She’s the open book. I’m the locked box.
She’s not supposed to notice these things.
Even though she’s “older,” I’ve always felt like the older one between us.
She’s so…princess. And I’m so guard dog.
“He doesn’t really like me. I’m just convenient.
He doesn’t get out much. It’s not going to last.” Breath pulls through my chest. “But I…I really want it to. I’d like to be wrong about how long it might last. I just have no idea how to get to…
to forever without breaking everything.” I squeeze my eyes shut and cut my fingers into my hair, tugging on the roots.
“Worse, I’m trying to break everything. I’m being horrible, Mae.
I want to be wrong, but I’m not willing to be.
I’m so sure I’m right, I’m making it hard to be anything but.
I’m being difficult and annoying and needy and inconsiderate.
I’m basically jumping on what could be in an effort to shatter it…
or…or to prove to myself that—no matter what—it won’t shatter at all.
It’s repulsive. I’m repulsive. On top of everything else about me that’s already hard enough to love. ”
“You’re not hard to love,” she lies.
I scoff. “I am, though. You’re just numb to it because you’re used to me and have to love me as part of being my sister. You don’t have to like me, but you’ve got to love me.”
“I like you, too, though.”
Of course she does. Because she’s the sweet, pretty princess, and I’m the heinous witch.
“How’s Kyran reacting to your efforts to break things? Does he seem annoyed or bothered?”
I glare at the ground.
I guess…you’ll just have to come into forever with me.
“No, he doesn’t,” I mutter. But I’ve been fed words of forever before.
I believed them too readily when Talira said them.
I never even questioned whether or not she meant what she was saying.
And now? With her still cropping up every so often, trying to get back to what we were?
It stings to know that I’m the one cutting the option of forever out.
Because she hurt me.
And then I was an idiot.
And now I refuse to forgive her for not being there when I needed her most.
Maybe I’ve made up all her other crimes to justify how rotten I’m being. Maybe I’ve mixed up our relationship with how I let myself be used after she abandoned me. Maybe everything was perfect, and she made one little mistake, and she was a victim, and I’m not letting her get past it.
Even though she’s kept trying.
For five and a half years.
She’s tried to mend things for over five entire years, and I haven’t let her. For all I know, she’s doing her best to hold on to what she promised and what we had, because she cares about me, still, even though I’ve been pushing her away for years, because I’m…bitter.
“I’m the problem,” I say. “I’m always…the problem.”
“If so,” Maelin says, “doesn’t that also make you the solution?”
Yeah. I guess. Logically, and all that.
But that sure doesn’t make it any easier.