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I roll my eyes despite the fact that she can’t see them.
A man just had his heart shattered into a million pieces, and per usual she’s making this about her.
My sister can get another job. Maybe not her dream job. Maybe not tomorrow. Maybe not at the snap of her fingers. Maybe not an enviable position with a handsome salary and a laundry list of fringe benefits. But she’ll get back on her feet at some point. She always does.
Roman, on the other hand, has only one heart.
“I should call him,” I say.
“What’s the point?” Margaux asks with a huff. The sound of miscellaneous office supplies rattling around in drawers fills the background.
“The point? The point is I was going to tell him myself on Friday. The point is he had to hear it from you and not me—the woman he’s been falling for this entire time.”
“No, the point is he’s rich and handsome, and he can swipe an app on his phone and have a replacement woman Ubered to his door in thirty minutes or less. Trust me, the man’s going to be fine,” Margaux says. “Me, on the other hand . . .”
“Damn it, Margaux! Not everything is about you.” I raise my voice at my sister before clamping my hand over my mouth. I’m not a yeller. I rarely get angry. And the last place I want to do either of those things is at the gallery, where my boss is holed up in her office across the hall and our main floor is filled with colleagues and collectors alike. Lowering my voice, I add, “When you’re done packing up your office, maybe you can pack up your bedroom too. How soon can Ethan’s mom get you into that apartment?”
My question is met with dead silence.
It’s rare for the proverbial cat to have Margaux’s tongue.
I can only hope she’s thinking about this from someone else’s perspective for a change.
Brenna steps into the break room, her face twisted behind her emerald-green frames.
“Everything okay?” she mouths when she sees I’m on the phone.
Without saying goodbye, I hang up on Margaux.
“I heard shouting . . .” Brenna winces.
“I’m sorry. I’ve got a bit of a personal situation going on. I should probably take the day. I’m not sure I’d be all that helpful if I stuck around . . .”
She lifts a thin scarlet-colored brow. “Again? Didn’t you have a personal emergency the other week?”
“I did,” I say, vividly recalling the day I took Margaux to her ultrasound and IUD removal.
Not once did she thank me for that . . .
And now that I think about it, two years ago, I asked her to take me to my LASIK surgery appointment, and she claimed she couldn’t get the time off. I had to inconvenience a friend instead. Over the years, she’s used countless bottles of my face creams and lotions and oils, and not once has she offered to replace a single one. On top of that, she’ll crumple my laundry in a wrinkled heap on top of the dryer when she needs to use it—instead of placing it in a basket like a sane person. She refuses to use AirPods to listen to her music when I’m trying to sleep or relax, claiming they “feel weird” in her ears. Margaux has no qualms about using the last of the coffee creamer or borrowing my favorite boots or umbrella when she forgets to plan ahead for inclement weather. She erases my shows from our DVR to make room for hers without so much as an apology.
I realize now that I could write a novel on all the ways my sister is the most selfish human being on the planet. How I didn’t see this before is beyond me. Perhaps I didn’t want to see it? Just like Margaux is happily in denial about her growing belly, maybe I, too, was turning a blind eye to all the ways my sister has always put herself first.
Our entire life, I’ve made excuses for her. She was always so anxious, so emotional, so high strung. My parents sidestepped around her mood swings and bent over backward to keep her smiling while I faded into the background, content to be the “easy” daughter.
While it’s simple to point fingers at Margaux and stew in this soup of outrage, the person I’m the most upset with right now . . . is myself.
I’ve always been the docile twin.
The quiet twin.
The affable, amiable, self-sacrificing, peacekeeping twin.
I’ve allowed her to take advantage of me more times than I can count over our lifetime, and in doing such, I’ve created a monster.
I’ve enabled all of this.
“My goodness.” Brenna places a hand on my shoulder, though she’s touching me so lightly I can hardly feel it. “I can tell you’re extremely upset right now. Whatever it is, go home and deal with it. We’ll see you tomorrow.”
