Chapter 14 #2
by the time I find you, you’ve already moved on to the next absurdity.”
“When have you ever apologized for anything?”
Vivi noticed then that Calla was slurring. Or was she? Her voice shook, but it could have been hurt or anger or any one of
the million emotions that Calla exhibited in a given day.
“What’s wrong with you?” Vivi demanded. Somewhere inside of her, she knew she wasn’t being fair, not completely. But she’d
given everything up to follow that damn letter and Calla’s gut instincts. Didn’t Calla owe her for that?
“Because something always has to be wrong with me. It’s the only way your story makes sense.”
“You’re drunk.” Vivi grew lofty and distant, the most direct course in provoking Calla’s temper. Pushing the buttons of sisterhood,
a habit as regular as breathing. “You should sober up before we talk.”
“You’re never happy unless you have a mess to fix. And even if there isn’t a mess, you create one in that overactive brain
of yours. Where the hell is the medicine cabinet?”
Vivi reached into her pocket and threw Calla’s pills at her. They smacked her on the chest. “You could just take one of these.”
“Bee—” Calla regarded her soberly. “It isn’t what you think.”
“It’s exactly what I think. It always is. You’ll never change.”
“You’d like to believe that, wouldn’t you? It’s easier to obsess over me than to look at yourself in the mirror.”
“I’m not the one who hides every time there’s a problem.”
“Aren’t you? Tell me: did you ever actually say no to Samuel’s offer to move in? Or did you just do something to make it impossible for him to love you?”
Vivi began walking away.
“Did you ever answer Dad’s calls after you left for college?” Calla continued. “Or did you wallow in your pen of anger, because
it was easier than listening to what he had to say?”
Vivi went into her room.
“Did you ever ask why I painted Clio? Or why Wayland needed to destroy it?”
Vivi shut the door. “Go away, Calla.”
On the other side, Calla continued yelling at her. “You’re an addict too, Vivian Nguy?n. Dad and me, we might battle our need for alcohol and pills. But you’re addicted to avoidance. Snorting self-delusion. Anything
you can do to forget that you are just as fucked up as the rest of us.”
“I’m not.” Vivi said it softly, as if to herself. Her self-concept was wavering. She could feel the shift and wanted, like
a child, to hold her hands against her ears. Her sister’s words were causing her physical pain, a jarring of her organs. “I’m
not like you.”
Calla thumped her fist on the door. It was asinine, this shouting match from separate rooms. But maybe it was the only way
they could talk about any of it.
“At least I’m honest about who I am. You’re terrified that if you’re forced to sit with your boring, unoriginal thoughts,
then you might discover that maybe you’re not as healed as you think you are. You’re not as innocent or good as you want the world to believe.”
“What do you know about goodness?”
But even as she said it, Vivi knew it wasn’t right.
Calla, who cried buckets over squirrels squashed in the road, who punched a kid that’d snapped Vivi’s bra, who could pinpoint the most vulnerable guest at a party and draw them out with the generosity of a person who well understood the hurt of isolation.
Calla had always been good. That’s what Vivi was afraid of, that Calla, for all her many foibles, would turn out to be the better and more lovable sister.
And Vivi, who behaved just as she was told to, might be the one hiding a seam of darkness that no one could ever accept.
Calla’s voice caught with a sudden earnestness. “I love you, I fucking love you, but you are broken, like me. Just like Dad
and Mom. No amount of faking or forgetting will change what we went through. And you know what? I wouldn’t want to forget.
I respect myself too much to lie. Can you say the same?”
Vivi felt as if she were being pulled under, her protective garments washed away like pigments shaken from a brush. “Go to
bed. We can call your doctor in the morning.”
“I’ll give you his number myself. He prescribed the pills, you monumental idiot.”
“I don’t believe you.” Vivi’s hands were on the wood. She could hear Calla’s heavy breathing on the other side.
“They’re antipsychotics. I’ve been taking them for months. And going to therapy and doing everything I can not to fall apart
again. Why, you might ask?” Vivi could almost taste the biting acidity in Calla’s words. “Because of you. Because of what
you and Wayland did. Vivi, I know what happened after Enmeshment. And I’ll never forgive you for not being the one to tell me.”
Vivi slumped to the floor, her head falling between her knees. Her mind was a whirlpool, all the thoughts spinning into the
murk of her subconscious. There was a sudden silence outside her room, as if Calla had simply vanished.
Then, after a handful of beats, Calla’s voice came, brittle as a cold snap, “I’m going home. Don’t you dare follow me.”
There was a slam of the door, the clatter of suitcase wheels through the hallway. Calla was leaving. This time, Vivi didn’t
feel the impulse to run after her. She didn’t want her here. Not when the memory was so imminent; the fangs of it pressed
against her neck, drawing the blood that, once released, flowed too quickly and too easily.