“In the same bed?”
My lips pinch. “Yeah, well. I mean.”
Eager, she leaves her sewing machine and jumps onto the bed with me. “Are you guysfinallytogether?”
“What? No. Don’t be crazy.”
My beautiful, kind big sister pouts, with an amount of ire. “Don’t try and tell me that you were too scared of the dark to go home, so you crawled into your ‘big brother’s’ bed for safety.”Sass incarnate, she throws up air quotes and rolls her eyes toward the ceiling.
After what’s happened these past few weeks, I canneverthink of Kyran as my “brother” again; therefore, I gag.
Coolly, Maelin says, “Oh good. I’m glad that ship has sailed.”
I cross my arms and let my lip jut, twinning her lip jut, but with far more duress. “This is abusive.”
“Is not,” she protests. “It’s,actually, abusive to not tell me about your love life.”
Is it? Great. In that case, since my beautiful, smart, wonderfully romantic big sister still doesn’t know about the mistakes I made behind buildings at our very own high school, I guess I’ve beenabusivefor a while. Not that what happened came anywhere close tolove. But. Still. Those mistakes are secrets I intend to take to my grave.
I don’t want the sadness or distinct hurt to flash through Maelin’s eyes. I don’t want more guilt about the whole, horrible thing to weigh on my chest and suffocate me.
On the tail end of Talira’s betrayal, Maelin would’ve talked sense into me if I’d told her I’d started flirting with the school jerk tocope. Which is why I didn’t let her. I didn’t makesensean option. I chose having a few meaningless hours where someone was focused on me and making me feel like I wasn’t worthless over common sense.
I’m a loser.
I’m an idiot.
I’m afeeler. I let my stupid, lousy feelings dictate more than they should.
I mutter, “I don’t have a love life. Kyran likes me. Everyone knows that.”
“And you stayed over with him, after you’ve spent this past week updating his room so that it looks like a beautiful combination of the two of you.”
My mouth opens, to rebuttal, but I get stuck on her words.
A beautiful combination of the two of us?
Not even Kyran immediately saw how his room wasus. And, I thought, he was the person trying toseeme the most.
“What are you talking about?” I ask. “I made his room pretty and princess.”
A touch of bemusement settles in Maelin’s glass green eyes. “It’s his blue, isn’t it? And you’ve always liked pretty things like that.”
“Um.” I reference my attire: dark-wash jeans and a loose-fit black shirt that ties at the front. “Hello?”
Maelin holds my gaze, sassy brow lurching. “You’re acting like I’ve never lived with you, Mora. You collect pretty things everywhere you go. You have a million pink stuffed animals, and an entire hoard of those cutesy little horses.”
“Tokidokis,” I say.
“Yeah, those things. The ponies with the big eyes and the wings, and I’ve been with you when you’ve pointed at the backs of their mystery boxes and told me that your favorites were always the celestial ones. Clouds and stars and pastels. Pretty. Like Kyran’s room.”
I’m not sure what to do with the information that my sister knows me better than I thought.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” she asks.
“Like what?” I snip.
“Like…I’m not supposed to know this about you.”
