*
SWEAT DRENCHED THE neckline of my T-shirt and turned my legs slimy. I kicked my tennis shoes off on the front porch and shoved them next to the family welcome mat. My muscles burned and my calves were already tight. I’d run the mile to Hollow Pines High to meet Paisley where we’d then done two full sets of stadium steps. Even though I knew I’d be sore in the morning, I relished the surge of endorphins, the feeling of fistfuls of blood pumping through my heart and the way my body felt totally awake after a good workout. An Eminem song blared through my headphones, reminding me of the times that Paisley and I used to ride around in her car, windows down with nowhere to go, blasting rap songs and nailing every line word for word at the top of our lungs. The memory made me smile. I tugged the buds from my ears and wrapped the wire around my phone as I pushed open the door to my house.
“Mom, I’m home!” I yelled. My socks left cloudy imprints on the hardwood floor as I pounded up the stairs to my room. The door to my bedroom was closed. When I opened it, I let out a soft shriek once I found that it was occupied.
“Honor? God, you scared me.” I blinked several times in quick succession, surprised to see her in my room when she wasn’t supposed to be and even more surprised when I took in what she was doing.
“Cassidy!” She whirled to turn her back away from the full-length mirror. She didn’t realize I could still see the phone clutched in her palm through the reflection.
My little sister was wearing a red thong and a black push-up bra. Both of them were mine. “What are you doing?” I lunged for her phone.
She jumped clear of me and held the phone out in her opposite hand to stay clear of my reach. “Nothing. God, don’t overreact. I’m going to wash them and put them right back where I found them, okay?”
Underneath her constellation of freckles, her face flushed pink.
“You think that’s what I’m worried about? Whether you return my … my underwear?” Her knobby knees bowed slightly inward as she tried to shift into a more modest position. I gawked at her pointy elbows and sharp collarbone, both of which would have made her appear more at home on a playground than posing in lingerie. “The question is what are you doing in them because I’ll tell you what it looks like you’re doing.”
She rolled her eyes and in that moment it looked to me like my little sister had morphed into some kind of otherworldly being. “Please, Cassidy. Like you aren’t going to parties and sneaking out with boys. I found you yesterday morning wearing your clothes from the night before. Remember?”
My mouth fell open. “I—I—what? That’s totally different.” And for a second it was like I had double vision. I saw Honor sneaking out to Dearborn. Honor flirting with college boys. Honor ditching her friends for a cute smile and a free drink. Honor being passed around, sneered at, called horrible names, names so poisonous they would burn a hole through her chest. And Honor not getting to choose her first anything because it was taken from her in one stupid moment.
She stood there twirling a few strands of hair around her finger.
“Give me your phone,” I said slowly, stretching out my hand.
She lifted her chin defiantly just as she had when she was five years old and wanted to wear a tutu for a week straight. “No.”
“Give it to me.”
“No!”
“Honor Mary Hyde, give me that phone!” I charged and grabbed her behind the elbow. We tumbled onto my bed.
She flattened her face into the mattress. “Get off me,” she screamed. She tucked the phone underneath her stomach. I straddled her, one knee on either side of her little-girl hips.
“Who did you send them to, Honor? This isn’t funny.”
“No one! Gross, Cass, you’re all sweaty.”
I wedged my arm between her and the bed. Cheerleading and two extra years had made me twice as strong as her. I felt for her fingers and pried them off the pastel blue case one by one until she lost her grip on the phone.
“Got it!” I yelled triumphantly. I kept her pinned down while I scrolled through the contents of her phone and found the pictures. Three photographs were saved side by side. One with Honor turned to the side, her back arched, her hair cascading until it reached the small of her back. One straight on, but I could tell she was using the sides of her arms to create the small line of cleavage. And one shot over her shoulder to get a view of her butt. “Oh, disgusting, Honor.” My nose wrinkled and I hit “delete” on each of the photos. “Here’s your dumb phone back.” I tossed it on the mattress next to her head and crawled off of her. “Next time I catch you doing something like that I’m telling Mom.”