“I am so jealous of you. I actually used to fantasize about what it would be like to hate you,” Paige says. She won’t look at me, keeping her focus on the place where her skirt skims the tops of her knees. She runs her hands down the material, straightening it, pulling the fabric lower. Demure—she’s being demure…now.
“Wow,” I say, not really sure what else to add. I let my bags fall to the ground next to me, my muscles almost seizing from the build up of lactic acid. I have a feeling Paige and I might be out here in this driveway for a while.
“It used to be the attention, the way everyone worried about you. They don’t worry about me. I know, I know…it’s stupid and petty. And I don’t feel like that now, but I used to,” she continues. I’m still stuck on that word hate, wondering if I’ve ever wished that about her. I think I might have, as recent as yesterday. And it makes me a little ashamed, because my sister is at least big enough to admit it. To my face.
“You said am…am jealous. What in the world could you possibly have to be jealous about now?” I ask.
She breathes in deeply, and closes her eyes, shaking her head slowly, before looking up at me with so much honesty that it drives her words right into my chest, making my heart hurt for her. “You know exactly who you are,” she says.
“Paige, that’s ridiculous. So do you. You’re the most confident person I know,” I say.
“I’m a faker,” she says. “I fake to fit in, for everybody. I play up the pretty because that seems easy, so I go with it. I joined a sorority, because that’s what I thought a girl like me should do. I’m dating a guy who only halfway pays attention to me, who makes me feel small and insignificant—a guy who my sister would probably punch in the face if he tried to be her boyfriend. But he fits a checkbox. You know who you are. I have no idea.”
There’s a long silence while my sister sits in the car, keys in her lap, and a dress on her body that’s fit for a night out at the club. I’ve gotten so used to seeing my sister wear this part, and she’s good at it. I never thought in a million years that she didn’t want it.
“I don’t know, Paige. I just don’t rule anything out as an option. That’s all. You…you sort of rule things out, without even trying,” I say.
She laughs lightly at my suggestion, turning her attention to our parents’ house straight ahead. “You have no idea how true that is, Cass. No idea,” she says, biting at her lip and squinting her focus to the nothing in front of her before pulling her purse from the center console and finally stepping out of the car near me. She looks down at her feet, then at the heavy bags surrounding mine before she meets my eyes.
“I’m really sorry about Chandra,” she says, pausing short, her breath held, her tongue held, her mind deciding if she has more to say. “I never thought she would use what I told her to hurt you, but…”
“But…” I almost finish it for her, my heart absolutely ripping in half because I know what she’s going to say.
“But there was a small part of me…that sort of wanted her to,” she says, her lips open, more words needed. But there’s nothing more to say. I can see the regret in her eyes, but she respects me enough not to lie, not to throw fake apologies on top of her confession.
I let her walk away. I wait for the door to close completely behind her. My sister is gone. Somewhere on our path together, our roads split, and I lost her.
Ty
“You come up with your big move yet?” Nate asks, flopping down on the sofa next to me. He’s making that annoying sipping noise, puckering his lips to try to suck up the spillover around the top of his Orange Crush can.
“No, someone had to go and write their girlfriend the Nicholas Sparks of all love letters, so now the expectations are out there at, like…well, let’s just say they’re unrealistic expectations now! And dude, can you stop licking the top of your soda can? You look like a junior higher learning how to French kiss!” I might be a little irritable.
Nate chuckles while he takes a full drink from his soda, and I secretly wish for him to inhale some of it, make it come out his nose. But no, he goes back to the sipping.
“Why don’t you just write her a letter then, since it works so well,” he says, his legs crossed, all relaxed and shit on the coffee table.
“Don’t get too comfortable there, Casanova. You still haven’t heard from Rowe yet. You don’t know that your letter worked.” He deflates a little when I say this, and I’m hitting below the belt. I know his letter worked. And I know when we head to Arizona for his tournament tomorrow she’s going to be there to surprise him. Of course his letter worked. Hell, he even picked up my girlfriend with his apparently poetic, Shakespearean prose. Nate’s letter is all Cass has talked about.