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Rory’s eyelids swing even lower, so low they’re almost slits.
After ten long seconds of us staring each other down, she draws her attention back to her bouquet. Only then, after her concentration is elsewhere, do I rub at the spot she’d thwacked because it really did fucking hurt.
“How did the farmers’ market go yesterday?” my sister asks, never lifting her head from where she’s tying up her bundle with a white satin ribbon.
Now my eyes are the ones thinning out. Like she didn’t already make her assumptions the night before. She preyed on my cheeriness, which is how I ended up here.
This question is about her provoking us both in the hopes that one of us would confess something.
Hailey’s face is too telling, her swallow throaty enough that I know I need to throw Rory off before she ruins whatever this is between us.
Two can play at this game. “You mean the one I was tricked into going to?”
I wait.
I do it some more.
Then finally…nothing.
Silence. Nothing but polarizing resistance from Rory.
If I wasn’t so high off satisfying Hailey last night, I would’ve called her out for it right then and there too, but my thoughts were flooded elsewhere.
Ididhave fun, but that doesn’t mean her actions weren’t unjust. Either of them, if we’re being honest. The girls stuck together and duped me. I was tricked.
“We ended up having a fun time,” Hailey says, giving Rory something. It’s more than I was willing to until she admitted her wrongs.
Scoffing, I grab a handful of fresher flowers. These only look slightly better than the rumpled clothes that usually sit in my gym bag for weeks before the smell finally gets to me and I take them out.
I refuse to glance over in Hailey’s direction for several reasons. One, she gave Rory an out when I was trying to bait her. Two, and most importantly, she’s making it too easy for me to be comfortable around her again.
I lift an indifferent shoulder. “It was alright.”
“Only alright?” Hailey splutters, appalled.
“It’s what I said, isn’t it?”
Why am I reacting like this? I know we had a bit of a snafu in the beginning, but we worked through it. The rest of the night only grew more enjoyable.
I’m being an ass, but maybe it’s because every day, the armor I’d put around myself to protect me against Hailey is thinning, baring more. Stripping it away, she transfixes me, so much so that if I’m not careful, I’ll be left with nothing more than a thin layer of foil.
The longer I keep my tone the most basic form of neutral, the more time she has to react, working herself up. It’s the only time I get insight into what she’s thinking. Her face may tell me one thing, but I want to hear the words. I need communication.
Now Hailey’s lips are full-on puckering.
Come on, speak up, Williams. Knock down those walls and let someone in. Let me in…
“What about after?” Lil Sis asks.
“I cooked.”
“I bet it was delicious then. Finn’s the only reason any of us don’t survive off takeout and frozen pizzas,” Rory jokes.
Hailey mimics me, right down to the shoulder shrug. “It was alright.”
Her response is too quick, and I can tell Rory instantly reads into it. My sister has been trying to deflect the tension, but it radiates between us like a heated blade. Callous but brittle, that’s what we are.
“Kind of bland…”
