“I’m not sure that’s righ—" I was totally sure that sounded wrong, but I didn’t want to die, so I softened the words some.
“I’ve wondered about the two of us together,” she talked over me. “Our bodies intertwined. Maybe I’ve imagined her naked or—”
“Oh no,” I groaned. “Don’t tell me.” This was worse than the lesbian poster in her room!
She rolled her eyes. “I’m a pseudo sister not your real sister.”
“Still gonna say no.” I firmly supported myself in this decision.
“Thought communication was everyone’s problem?” she asked smartly.
“You’re communicating fine with me.” Too fine. A+. 10/10, would not have this conversation ever again. “Go do that with Alicia instead.”
Lydia shook her head. “It’s just. I care about her feelings,” she admitted that like it was a dirty secret. Like caring about her girlfriend was somehow a fault. “Everyone else in the world? I don’t really care.” No shit. “But there’s this one person that I actually think about how my words and actions affect her.” She made a pitiful noise. It was really weird. “I should be able to do this, not cause this one person pain.” Her voice sounded like there were actual emotions in it.
Sometimes, you had to choose between a ton of bad choices. Sometimes, anything you did was going to hurt someone. It didn’t seem very realistic that she could never hurt Alicia. The closer and closer they got the more likely it became, right? But there had to be a scale. Hurting her a little versus a lot. I thought Alicia would be able to handle some pain. That just telling Alicia how she felt would be better than keeping things from her or dragging it out.
But me? I kept my fucking mouth shut.
Even though it did no good at all. Even though Lydia seemed really down, and she might actually listen to someone right now. I should prepare to get hit and tell her to grow up and talk to Alicia. I didn’t. This wasn’t the smart choice or the good choice or the right choice, but it was the only one I was comfortable with making at the moment.
Lydia was really down and I couldn’t make myself bring her down more. Even if it was necessary. Even if it would help. She was my pseudo sister. I loved her like a real sister, and I liked her more than Rose, my sister by blood. Yeah, I understood why she was being careful around Alicia.
We sat in silence. I wondered what Ryan was doing right now. Maybe this awkward, distance place we were at didn’t seem so bad anymore. It sucked that things weren’t improving and that there was seemingly nothing we could do but…
Maybe it was better than nothing.
