Walking away from him, hopefully for the last time, I yell back, “You don’t leech off of them until there’s nothing left, either!”
I’m waiting for the F train when my phone pings.
Mud Pie
Can we talk?
CHAPTER 2
My little sister has been “Mud Pie” in my contacts forever. She may have grown out of her need to make fake food out of the clay and rocks in the backyard, but that’s only because an art teacher was paying attention and got her into a ceramics workshop when she was seven.
She drops her bag onto the chair next to me and flops into the one across.
I watch the coffee in the cup in front of her as it sloshes a little.
“You havenoidea how happy I am to see you.” She sighs and wraps her hands around her cup. “How are you?”
“I’m—” I’m startled enough I almost tell her I’m just fine. But she seems to actually care, and I don’t feel like lying. “I’m doing really well.”
“Good.” She takes a long drink. “Did mom tell you what’s going on?”
“She accused me of asking you to stop talking to her.”
“Of course she did.” She yawns, and I yawn, setting off a small chain reaction around the coffee shop. “Sorry, I have like three papers due, and none of them are easy enough to just whip up last minute.”
“School’s going well then?” I try not to soundtoosarcastic.
She makes a disgusted face. “School is annoyingly time-consuming, and that’s about it. But that’s not what I wanted to talk to you about.”
“It’s probably a more pleasant conversation.”
“So, you know that she took us to Hawaii.”
“Yeah.” I try not to sound bitter, and I’m pretty sure I fail, even though it’s only one word.
“The entire time we were there, she kept telling me you were on your way, you were going to join us when your work thing was done.” She looks down at her cup, nose scrunching. “I am ashamed to say I believed her for a little too long to be excusable.”
“You can’t control what she does.”
“I know, but I didn’t have to trust her. And when we got back, and you were gone… I was so mad, I left and I haven’t talked to her since.”
“How did you know I was here?”
“Idon’t talk to her. She still talks to me. A Lot.”
That sounds about right. “And she told you I was coming home.”
“She said you were going to fix everything.”
“I’m not.”
“Good.” She sighs and clutches her cup, already empty. “Do you want another one?”
“No, I’m okay.”
I watch her go up to the register, order another latte and something else, and I wonder if she really needs any more caffeine.
She comes back, balancing her cup and two plates. “I got you the cheesecake crumble. I can’t see anything with streusel on it and not think of you.”
