A sharp pain pinches my chest. That’s the truth under her teasing.
I’ve been alone for so long that my sister treats it like a personality trait.
Melissa sets her mug down softly. “Do you want more coffee?” she offers Aubrey, as if giving everyone something simple to hold on to.
Aubrey exhales, grateful for the escape route. “Yes. Please.”
Melissa turns to the counter, moving comfortably through my space again. She opens the cabinet like she knows where things are … because she does. She’s already learned the layout. Already adapted.
Aubrey watches her with a softness that unsettles me. When Melissa’s back is turned, Aubrey’s gaze slides to mine, and the teasing is gone completely.
She mouths without sound,Who is she?
I shake my head slightly.
Not because I don’t want to tell her.
Because I don’t know how.
She’s Melissa.
She’s the woman who makes my control slip.
She’s the one who makes my Sundays feel like something other than the empty time I need to survive.
Aubrey’s eyes sharpen, like she’s reading the parts I’m not saying.
Melissa returns with coffee. Aubrey thanks her with genuine warmth.
“So,” Aubrey says, shifting back into a lighter tone, “how long have you two been …”
Melissa nearly chokes.
“Friends?” Aubrey finishes innocently.
Melissa coughs, then laughs. “Friends.”
Aubrey nods exaggeratedly. “Yes, friends.”
Melissa’s cheeks are pink now, and I can’t look away from it. She’s embarrassed but not upset. There’s a sweetness to her fluster that makes me want to pull her into me again.
In the kitchen. In front of my sister. Like I’ve lost my damn mind.
Aubrey drags her gaze over me. “You look … different,” she says suddenly.
I stiffen. “I always look the same.”
“No,” she insists. “You look”—she gestures vaguely— “less like you want to bite someone.”
Melissa laughs again, and Aubrey grins at her.
“See? You bring out a nicer version of him.”
Melissa’s smile softens, but her eyes flick to me. Searching. Because in her mind, a man wrapping his arms around her in a break room, a man letting her wear his clothes, a man letting his sister see her in his kitchen—that’s relationship behavior.
And I told her I don’t do relationships.
My chest strains with a sharp, unfamiliar guilt.
