I held my breath. “Where is she?”
She did it. She scratched at her cheek. If I hadn’t known her as well as I had once upon a time, I wouldn’t have known that was her tell when she was full of BS. But she sounded pretty freaking convincing as she said, “She’s out. She’ll be back in a little while. She had to work tonight.”
Work? At midnight? With a place like this, she wasn’t exactly a waitress.
Thea lifted her hands and scrubbed at her eyes, putting me more on edge. “I’m sorry for making you drive all the way over here for nothing.”
It wasn’t that easy not to flinch.
“I’m fine. I know… I know it’s just stuff they took. I’ll find out if we have insurance that’ll cover it. The only thing I’m worried about is my laptop.”
Her laptop. For school. I tried to push down my disappointment in her lying—because I’d seen that scratch—and her regretting making me drive so far to come over… and told myself that I loved this person. I wanted the best for her even though she was making my chest hurt and it wasn’t the first time she had done so.
“How much is a laptop?” I managed to ask, clinging onto that thread of love like it was going to save me from falling off a cliff.
“You don’t have to do that, Luna. It’s fine. I can figure it out,” she said.
“But you need it for school. I can send you some money over—”
Thea shook her head sharply. “No, it’s fine, Luna. I’ve got it.”
She had it? How?
“I promise,” she insisted, just making me even warier. And hurt.
Okay. I forced my hands loose, forced myself to stay calm. To stay focused on that love inside of me. “What can I do then? What do you need?”
“I don’t need anything,” she said, but it felt more like a slice to my Achilles.
Beside me, Rip shifted and his voice was low as something touched my lower back briefly, so lightly I almost didn’t feel it. “I’ll wait in the car.”
I ignored the sandpaper-quality filling my throat, focusing on the woman in front of me. Because she was a woman. And for some reason I didn’t, and more than likely wouldn’t, understand, I told him, “You don’t have to. You can stay if you want.”
“Luna.” Thea’s voice went a little too soft. “I promise I’m fine. I’m sorry for wasting your time.”
She might be a liar, she might be hiding things from me for some reason, but I loved her. I did. “I’d do anything for you. You know that.”
“I know, but I really am sorry.” Her eyes slid to the side, the way they had plenty of times while she’d been younger. “My roommate will be here in a little bit, and I need to talk to her.” She rubbed at her eyes again, still averting them. “I have to be at work at eight tomorrow, and I’ll be there all day.”
“Okay.” I knew what she was trying to say. I knew it.
“We agreed not to let people stay over…,” she kept going.
There it was.
“I’m so glad you came. Only you would. You’re the best half-sister I could ever ask for.”
It was the half-sister that finally, finally made me flinch.
She had only called me that every once in a while, and only over the last five years. Before I had always been her sister. Her big sister. And now, now I was her half-sister.
“I wish I didn’t have to work tomorrow, but I need the money.”
She needed the money.
“I don’t know when I can come down again, but I’ll try to real soon.” My sister gave me a smile that fell flat, that sliced me again, this time straight across my stomach. “I miss you. I wanted to stay longer this last time, but I just couldn’t.”
All I could do was stand there.
With my heart feeling awfully close to breaking.
With a knot in my throat that seemed to be growing by the second.
I loved my sister. I genuinely loved Thea with everything in my heart. She had been the first person to be put into my life that had loved me back.
And she was, in few words, asking me to leave after I’d traveled almost four hours to come and see her.
My mouth watered and not for a good reason.
But I wouldn’t pitch a fit. I touched the LOVEYOU bracelet on my left wrist. I wouldn’t beg.
I just… nodded and gave her a smile that didn’t feel all that understanding, but I hoped it didn’t make her feel guilty either. She had just hurt me, but that didn’t mean I had to hurt her right back. What I couldn’t let go of right then was that freaking ache in me. I wasn’t going to give her a hard time for kicking me out.
But…
But I couldn’t just walk out of here, letting her think that she’d pulled a fast one on me. As much as I might want to believe she wouldn’t do that… she had. Or at least, she was trying to, and I couldn’t let that small thing go away. Not this time.
“Why didn’t you tell me you moved?” I asked her, ignoring how numb my voice sounded.
She paused, and the face I knew so well grimaced just a little but just enough. “I just…” Was she trying to think of a lie? “I… I didn’t want to bother you.”
She didn’t want to bother me.
Maybe I had literally hours ago said those exact words to Rip, but that had been because I didn’t want to ask him for help.
My sister moving out of her apartment wasn’t bothering. Why would that be bothering? How would that be bothering?
Thea must have realized how weak that excuse was because she gave me a smile that time that was just as fake as her last one had been. “My roommate invited me to come live here with her, but she doesn’t like people coming over, so I didn’t see a point in telling you and then….”
Having to tell me I wasn’t allowed to spend the night? After I had paid for our apartment all on my own while she had lived with me for three years? I would have understood.
She knew that.
I wasn’t unreasonable. I could have stayed at a hotel.
But she had always shut down every time Lily and I brought up coming to visit. Every single time. Instantly. Over and over and over again over the years.
Hadn’t Kyra come and stayed with her a few months ago? I wondered for a moment before deciding I didn’t want to know. In case she was lying to me.
I scraped my tongue against the roof of my mouth as I stood there and nodded like I understood. But I really didn’t. Not even a little.
Thea watched me carefully, back to wringing her hands.
I bit my bottom lip.
I was loved. I was happy. I had my own place. I was a decent person.
And Rip had driven me all the way to Dallas to come see my sister because she had asked.
I wasn’t going to feel ashamed or bad. I wasn’t going to let this get to me. Even if she was one of the last people in this world who I would have ever expected to hurt me the way she just had.
I was going to choose to be happy after this.
“Okay, Thea,” I told her carefully, not able to muster up more than just a smile that consisted of a twisted cheek. “Let me know if you need anything, all right?” I still found myself offering.
She… she just nodded.
I took a step back and thought about that hug I wished I could or would have given her, but she didn’t step forward or make a move to make it seem like she wanted one either.
So I let my hands drop to my sides.
“Take care,” I told her, hearing how wooden it came out.
She didn’t even flinch. “Drive safe,” she told me like she had a hundred other times when things between us were fine and normal. The scratch she made to her cheek was the only thing that told me that she might feel a little bad. And just a little. I didn’t expect much more than that.
I thought I was a strong person. I was forgiving. More patient than most people I knew. I wasn’t really that petty. I didn’t expect a lot from anyone, ever.
But as I walked around my sister with my eyes glued in front of me, I felt shittier than I could ever remember in the last ten years.
It honestly, genuinely, felt like my heart was breaking. Or maybe the fracture had always been there and it was getting wider and deeper, cutting into me even more than before. I hadn’t thought it was possible.