“What?” she asked, looking confused again.
“We’re not family,” I said, staring straight out the windscreen. “There is no onus on you to keep acting like we are.” My throat squeezed and my eyes stung.
“Riley, you don’t seriously think I buy any of that bullshit, do you?”
Someone snorted, and I looked up to see Rick leaning on the other side of the car. Traitor.
June sighed and crouched beside the open door in her pointy white heels, tugging at the hem of her skirt to keep her goodies covered. She needed to invest in different outfits for when she was dealing with me.
“This is as much of a shock to me as it is to you. I’m so fucking angry at Dad.” She dragged the last of her cigarette and stubbed it out on the gravel. “But don’t you dare disrespect me by saying we’re not family. Don’t you dare.”
The warning in her eyes was sharp enough to slit a jugular.
I bit my bottom lip, trying to hold the stinging back.
“He lied to me too,” she whispered, pulling my hands into hers. “But you are the only sibling I’ve got left in this world. The only sister I’ve ever had. Don’t take that away from me.”
Her grey eyes were hollow, and my insides squirmed seeing her so wounded.
“I’ll still be your sister,” I said, squeezing her hand. “If you want me.”
She climbed straight into my lap and wrapped her arms around my neck. I had a moment of gratitude for her tiny size before I held her tightly in return.
“Without a doubt. We chose each other back then. We must have—for Dad to be so convinced it was the right thing. I still choose you now, and I’ll choose you forever. You’re my sister, Riley Walls. Sorry about it.”
I sniffed and rubbed my face into her white top. The floodgates of my tears lifted. That shirt was seriously a goner.Unclipping my seat belt, she led me out of the car, squeezing my hand once I stood. My legs wobbled beneath me, and I was grateful I’d gone with my white platform sneakers instead of my feel-better wedges.
“Now, I believe we’ve got some questions to ask,” she said, as we looked up at the front of the house we’d grown up in—for the second time in a month.
My vow never to see the man’s face again hadn’t lasted 24 hours.
The house looked exactly the same as yesterday, yet it was completely different.
“Ready?” she asked as Rick joined my other side.
I nodded, feeling braver than I expected to. “I'm ready.”
“Another envelope.” I snorted with irony, my hand drooping with the weight of the sealed oblong in my hand. It felt like I’d been unknowingly playing a real-life version of Clue since I’d accepted the brown envelope from Trevor, collecting leads to my future. Destiny should be able to be found with less emotional whiplash.
“It arrived ten years ago. It was addressed to you, so I never opened it. This one came when you were seven,” he said and handed me a larger-sized packet with the seal broken. I felt betrayed all over again. He’d had some of this information for twenty-eight years. What had I been doing the day it arrived? Had his stomach dropped through the floor like mine just had? Or had he simply hidden it away as I walked past my true self, lying on the kitchen table, completely unaware?
“You’ve cleaned,” June muttered, arms folded as she stood in the middle of the room.
I hadn’t even noticed. No clutter on the walk from the front door to the open-plan kitchen and living area where we now stood.
Dad shoved his hands deep into the pockets of his sweatpants, still avoiding our eyes. Rick had made himself scarce, admiring the hedging in the garden. Apparently, he was now a gardening adult too.
So much had changed in my friend over the past month, and as happy as I was for him, something about it gnawed at me—even though I felt guilty admitting it.
I was scared of losing everyone. Everything was shifting in irreparable ways. That included Rick. I didn’t know what his playing happy families and finally buying his little slice of suburbia meant for me.
I wanted everyone to stay stuck with me in the murky weeds. Except I knew they couldn’t, and definitely shouldn’t.
A bigger part of me knew I couldn’t stay here either. How long had I chained myself to the same place in life, too afraid to change, too paralysed to commit—always bracing for the worst-case scenario?
Well, change had arrived anyway.
With a swift kick to the vagina bone.
