“I made some pork belly bao. There’s leftovers if you want that too.” I get out of bed, grateful for the opportunity to spend the rest of my night in a shirt stolen from Ezra’s closet and a pair of shorts.
Haven leads the charge to the kitchen, putting the extra bottles of wine in the fridge and dropping the one we’re starting with on the counter.
I grab down the glasses, and she fills them to the brim, not giving a damn about letting the wine breathe.
I grab my glass and take a sip before it can overflow. “So, it’s going to be that kind of night, is it?”
Haven grabs a container full of the bao, not bothering with warming it as she grabs her wine in the other hand. “I had the worst date of all dates. Men suck. You’re going through hell with whatever the fuck Ezra is doing. I say we deserve this.”
“So…then…yes. We are doing this.” I drop down on the couch beside her, some of the wine sloshing over my hand.
I wipe it on my shorts before taking a large sip, letting the alcohol soothe away some of the pain.
It’s not the best way to cope, but for tonight, it’s good enough.
She puts her glass on the table before starting to devour the buns. “I’m starting to think it’d just be better to stay single forever.”
“You’re not wrong about that.” I snag one of the buns and take a bite.
“How’s school going?”
I shrug. “It’s going well.”
She rolls her eyes before giving me a flat look. “You’re going to need to do better than that. This is one of the biggest things in your life, and you’re saying it’s goingwell? Come on. Give me a little more than that.”
“Okay, I really like it, and I hate to admit that Ezra was right about me going out and doing this for myself.” I glance out the window to the side of the window, where my bookshelf is, it looks like something’s been moved.
The bastard’s been in here again.
Haven hums happily and downs half her glass of wine. “And what about the space for the restaurant?”
“It’s been gutted, and it needs a lot more work than I thought it did, but it’s coming along. It’ll probably be open in a few months, and fuck knows how I’m going to manage going to school and running a restaurant at the same time.”
“If there’s anybody who can do it, it’s you.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence, but I’m not really feeling that these days. I keep thinking everything is going to go wrong, and then I’ll have nothing left to show for anything I’ve done. And then this entire thing won’t be worth it and everything is going to go up in flames and I’ll go back to being the little sister nobody ever really notices.”
Haven gets up and connects her phone to my speaker system, blasting some dance song as loud as she can. “Come on, get up and on your feet. We’re going to dance out the stress.”
“I don’t think that’s going to work.” But I get to my feet anyway, bopping around the living room with her to one song after the next.
We turn the music up louder.
The neighbors might complain, but I could use an excuse to leave this building anyway. Find somewhere to live without the cameras I’m sure Ezra reinstalled.
Haven spins with her hands high over her head, dancing her way through the living room, back to the kitchen, and pulling out another bottle of wine. She wrestles off the screw top, not bothering with a glass as she tips her head back and chugs.
She brings the bottle back to me and we pass it, drowning out the noise of the rest of the world.
Sometimes, life is too much to bear, even for the most stable person. And I’m certainly not the most stable. I’m broken and trying to put the pieces back together. I’m searching for who the hell I am, but I keep coming up empty.
I don’t know how much more of this I can do before sliding back into my comfort zone. Blending in with the people around me, only causing trouble when Aiden pushes me too far, sitting back so my other siblings can have their time to shine…all the time.
Haven sighs and falls back down onto the couch, staring up at the ceiling. “I didn’t think this was going to be the way my life went. I mean, we’re in our early twenties, and we shouldn’t have to have things figured out yet, but everyone around me does, and I keep thinking I’m falling behind.”
“It’s not a race,” I say, even though I feel the same way.
“Where do you think we’ll be when we’re thirty?”
