means either something specific happened to upset her, or the thousands of sucky little things that she’s been ignoring have suddenly sunk her.
It wasn’t even anything she said as much as it was her voice being so small and bitter. Until she went ballistic, that is, and then it was loud and bitter.
“Mom.” I interrupt her midsentence, no clue what she’s even talking about. “What’s the matter with Sarina?”
She pauses. “Nothing.”
“Doesn’t sound like it. Is she right there or something?”
“Yes.”
“Then go somewhere else so you can talk to me.”
“Uh, okay.” And then, “Sure, I’ll go look for it for you.”
“Nice one,” I say.
On the other end voices approach and recede, doors open and close, then Mom’s hushed voice. “There’s nothing wrong with Sarina. She’s just had a tough week and doesn’t need to hear me talking on the phone about it. But she’s doing her best to fit in, and when people get to know her and realize how sweet she is, she’ll have plenty of fr—”
“So she’s not fitting in.”
“She’s not going to fit in.” The drop in her voice is the first sign she isn’t totally delusional. “I think the fact that she’s spent so long in America probably fascinates most kids here, but fascination isn’t always good. I don’t have to tell you that not everyone loves America.”
I blink and remember the looks on my cousins’ faces when they decided my red-white-and-blue basketball shoes and stories about swimming with girls made me the worst kind of traitor. “How do you know all this? She didn’t tell me anything.” I don’t add that Sarina never tells my mom anything.
“There was a little altercation this week. She’s fine, but it upset her.”
“Altercation.” Satan’s Cat appears out of the kitchen and sidles up to the laundry basket, rubs his cheek on the bra cup.
“She’s fine,” Mom reassures me.
“You said that already. Why do I need to know she’s fine?”
“Well, apparently somebody threw a rock at her outside of the school two days ago. Or a couple of rocks. I don’t know. But she’s fine.”
“Stop saying she’s fine! Rocks? Are we talking pebbles or bricks? Was she hurt?”
“There was a gash on her cheek that required stitches, but the doctor said it’s superficial and should heal nicely. She really is going to be fi—”
Satan’s Cat hisses, and before I can think it through, I pick up the remote and hurl it. It misses her and she hisses again, louder this time, with her entire body arched and poised for battle.
For reasons I don’t understand, I hiss back.
“Mo?”
I hold my ground. Satan’s Cat gives a feral yelp, then scampers into the kitchen.
I’m too angry to speak. This must be where “seeing red” comes from, being so angry that red bleeds over all the other colors in your brain, turning the whole world into a monochromatic bloodbath.
“Mo?”
“I can’t believe you let that happen,” I say. “I can’t believe you’re pretending that’s not a big deal.”
Her response is the slightest sniffle, the first raindrop before a torrential storm.
I should apologize. Except I don’t want to. I want somebody to be protecting my sister, and I want to hate myself a little less right now.
So I let my mom cry.
When she says she should go, I don’t stop her. I want her to go. I also want her to get a grip and start acting like Sarina’s mother, but I don’t say it.
After, the silence scrapes away at me like cat claws. Annie should’ve been home hours ago, but I can’t call her because we still haven’t gotten around to buying her a new cell phone. Instead I wander from room to room, think about cleaning the kitchen like I promised, think about watching something mind-numbing like golf, think about sacrificing Satan’s Cat to the gods, all just so I don’t have to think about the gash on my sister’s face and people who actually hate her enough to do that to her. They don’t even know her.
I can’t believe she didn’t tell me. Except I can believe it, and the more my mind churns through it, the more I know she never would’ve told me, just like she will never tell me if it happens again. She probably wouldn’t have told anyone if her bleeding face hadn’t done it for her.
What are people saying to her? There’s no way it started with rocks. I know the rules of bullying and escalation, and it starts with words. But, of course, she won’t be talking to me about any of that either, now that we are on entirely different orbits. Skype visits. Phone calls. Emails. It’s all some big effort to pretend that that part of our lives isn’t over, the part where we are siblings under the same roof. Over. I can almost convince myself I’m being dramatic to feel this gutted, but then I remember: She has a gash in her face that’s big enough to need sewing the skin back together, and nobody to tell.
I end up in the bedroom, Annie’s room, curled up on the bed like a baby. It’s not like I’m going to stay here. The guilt is just exhausting, and I’m dying to hide under real sheets and pretend I have a room. A bed. For a few minutes, I can pretend myself back to before the world decided to chew me up and spit me out.
But then I close my eyes, pull the blanket over my head, and inhale. It’s a mistake. The sheets smell like girl. Warm and earthy and vaguely floral, like Annie.
I’m crying. I hate crying, but I’m doing it, not just because I can’t protect Sarina or even know her anymore, but because I chose it. All of it. I chose to let Annie screw over her whole life. Being with her all the time—I’d never have guessed how hard that would be. The longer we live together the more I feel this pull toward her, this ache and certainty that only she can fill the gaping hole left by everyone who’s abandoned me. I want to breathe in her hair. Touch her.
I need to get out of this bed. The land of guilt, that’s where I’m heading. It’s infidelity in reverse—thinking about loving her in ways that we don’t love each other in this marriage. It’s not part of our agreement. It’s betrayal.
Chapter 27
Annie
It isn’t betrayal. Or if it is, I don’t know who I’m even betraying anymore. I just know that when I finally get home and find Mo in my bed, crying like I have never seen him cry before, I don’t think about it. I climb in, wrap my arms around his torso, and press my cheek into his back.
We’re ten again. He’s broken.
I don’t think about the fact that I just had my hands on Reed’s chest, held my body against a different kind of desperation. I
Waking up in the same bed, fully clothed and sour-mouthed, is different. No, not different. Awkward. More for him than me, I think, based on the way he rolls away from me and stares at the wall while I stretch and stare at the ceiling. Maybe it’s the memory of spooning and sobbing more than the actual cosleeping that makes eye contact so impossible. So I do the only thing I can think of doing to make it less weird. As quietly as I can, I roll onto my side, reach over my head and brace myself with both hands on the headboard, place both feet flat on his lower back, and I shove him out of bed.
The
