AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I’m too weak, too susceptible to the plight of human suffering. How boring.
After closing out of my banking app, I call my older sister to check in. We aren’t exactly pen pals, but we talk every now and then. After the revelations of last night, I’m dying to know what she’s up to.
Charlotte answers after an endless drone of rings, and she sounds out of breath. “Lizzie?!”
Ah yes, the nickname she’s used my entire life even though it grates on my nerves.
“Hey, Charlotte. Do you have a second to talk, or are you busy?”
I cringe at how I sound, as if I never want to put her out for even a second even though I’m the one who’s just stepped up to the plate for our family. I’m the one with a new last name.
“Oh, I think I have a few minutes. I just finished up a ski run and I’m waiting for the others to catch up to me before we go for breakfast.”
“Are you in Aspen?”
“God no. Vail. Aspen can be so…pedestrian this time of year. Every celebrity worth two cents shows up with a snowboard and expects to fit in.”
I offer what I hope is an empathetic groan as she continues to enlighten me about the differences between the two mountain towns.
“Not to mention it’s so easy to fly private here versus Aspen. The airport there gets so backed up with these Instagrammers posing on the tarmac in front of their rented planes. It’s sad, truly.”
I think she’ll continue on forever if I don’t cut her off, so I do, quickly and in a high-pitched nervous voice.
“And what about your driver? Jack, right? Is he there with you as well?”
“Who?”
“Jack,” I say again, louder this time. “Your driver. Aren’t you two…”
I give her the chance to fill in the rest for me, but she doesn’t reply right away, and in fact, I think the call has dropped altogether. I shift the phone away from my ear, look down at it, then press it back in place just in time to catch her raucous laughter that cuts straight through me.
“Oh god, is that the story I gave Mom? That I ran away with my driver or something? Hilarious. No, Jesus, Lizzie, surely you didn’t buy that. Don’t you know me at all?”
I feel like the floor of the hotel room is falling out from underneath me. My vision narrows as my heart beats a rhythm so fast it’s like a hummingbird is about to take flight out of my chest.
“Charlotte, what do you mean?”
My words are careful and measured, but she doesn’t catch on.
She’s still laughing, so amused she can barely contain herself.
“Mom has been on my case for years about my supposed betrothal to Walt Jennings. Did you know about that? Good grief. There was no way I was going to go through with it. I mean, I have eyes so I can see that he’s good-looking and he comes from a good family and all, but he’s such a bore. All he does is work. Take now, for instance—everyone who’s anyone is here in Vail—no offense—and where is he? Probably in some stuffy boardroom. No thank you. That is not what I want for my life. There are plenty of cute wealthy men who know how to let loose.”
“So you didn’t run away with your driver because you were madly in love?” I ask one more time, just to clarify.
“No, Lizzie. Absolutely not.”
I let the phone drop from my hand, and it thumps softly against the bed.
I can faintly hear her calling my name, mildly annoyed, and then the call cuts off and there’s silence in that hotel room like I’ve never heard before. I feel absolutely hollow.
I’m not sure how to process this news, the last piece of straw liable to break the camel’s back. Up until this moment, I was proud of myself for what I did. My family was between a rock and a hard place, and I was their last hope. I thought I was playing the hero, but in fact, I was playing the fool. My sister would have never done what I did today. She would never have sacrificed herself. Maybe that makes her selfish, or maybe it just makes her smart. Either way, I feel sick.
I roll off the bed and go into the hotel’s small bathroom to splash water on my face. I glance up at myself in the mirror, taking in the dark circles under my eyes. I didn’t sleep much last night, and it shows in my appearance. I brush back my dark brown hair and then, still annoyed with it, I twist it around my hand and loop it up into a ballerina bun. Better, but only marginally. From my green eyes to my achingly high cheekbones, I look just like my mom, a person I can’t stand to think about right now.
