Page 24 of Glitched Fates & Stolen Mates

She stepped aside to let me in, already turning back towards the kitchen. “Appa is in the living room. Can you bring him a tea? I’m finishing up the cooking.”

I dropped my bag by the stairs and made my way to the kitchen, going through the familiar motions of brewing his tea—one sugar, splash of milk—before heading to the living room.

Appa was in his usual armchair, watching the news with the volume turned up louder than necessary. The familiar sounds of some political debate filled the room.

“Felix!” Lily looked up from the sofa, giving me a massive grin. “Five whole minutes, Felix,” she mocked teasingly. “Five!”

I rolled my eyes, then mouthed, “Good day or bad day?” jerking my head towards Appa.

“Good day,” she mouthed back, and I smiled in relief.

I approached my father’s chair with the steaming mug. “Do you want this in your hand? Or on the table?” I asked, making sure I wasn’t speaking too slowly or loudly. Lily had told me off for that a thousand times. Since the day Appa was diagnosed with Huntington’s around eight years ago, she’d always managed him and his needs better than me, even though I tried my absolute best.

My sister was the reason I’d finally moved out last year. She’d begged and pleaded with me to, shouting that I would end up wasting my twenties—“The best years of your life!”—by not leaving the house in case Appa needed me. “I don’t want a thirty-year-old spinster as a brother,” she’d said. “That’s so uncool, Felix!”

And so I’d moved into my tiny, pokey flat in Battersea Park. It cost almost as much as I earned.

But Lily was right.

It felt like freedom. Freedom to eat cereal for dinner if I wanted. Freedom to come and go without any watchful eyes, any questions of when I’d be back. Freedom not to feel guilty every time I looked at either of my parents, albeit for very different reasons.

“Hand’s fine, thanks,” Appa said, his voice steady today. Good. His fingers wrapped around the mug with just a little trembling.

I settled onto the sofa next to Lily, who immediately shuffled closer and elbowed me in the ribs.

“So,” she said, grinning wickedly. “How’s work? I hope you’ve prepared a better story today. The ‘fixing the printer’ tale from last week almost caused Eomma to have an aneurysm. I thought she was going to stab you with her knife at one point.”

Appa chuckled. “I enjoyed that story! Particularly the part where you had to crawl under three desks to find the printer cable, only to discover it wasn’t plugged in.”

He had a twinkle in his eye—sometimes I thought he knew the truth, that the job I embellished more and more every week was all fabricated.

“By the way, how’s that awful lecturer, Lily?” he asked. “Is she still giving you grief over your performance?”

Lily was studying Drama and Theatre Studies—to my mother’s horror. I suspected this was even more traumatic to her than me working in “IT support” rather than joining QuByte. Like I did during university, Lily lived at home, rather than in student housing. But I couldn’t help feeling that, unlike me, she would have loved the chance to move out. To have the proper uni experience.

I’d been all too happy to stay here during university—I found the lectures and seminars hard enough. I joined a few societies, so I eventually made a small handful of friends. That didn’t stop me from being thrilled when they offered me the chance to graduate a year early.

On the other hand, I could imagine Lily thriving living in a shared house, with the constant buzz of people socialising, the house parties, the fun.

But instead, she pushed me to move out, told me she wanted to stay to look after our father. The guilt was enough to eat me alive.

“No. She’s moved on to terrorising my friend now,” Lily said, making a face.

“Want me to give the university a ring? Tell on her?”

Lily laughed. “Appa! I don’t think that would help!”

“Worth a try,” he said, taking a careful sip of his tea. “I could pretend to be very official. Put on my best BBC accent.”

“Your BBC accent is terrible,” Lily said fondly.

“Rude.”

I watched them banter, feeling that familiar mixture of warmth and guilt that always bubbled up during these visits. They had this easy rhythm together, built from months of good days and bad days, of Lily learning to anticipate Appa’s needs before he even voiced them.

“Oh!” Lily suddenly said, bouncing on the sofa. “Felix! Don’t forget about the SEVENTEEN gig Saturday after next!”

I groaned. “How could I possibly forget when it’s all you talk about?”