“Tati, it was one night.”
She snaps her compact closed, turning to glower at me. “I asked you to come down here because I wanted to vent. I should’ve known you’d defend him. You two are cut from the same cloth. Of course you can’t see his faults.”
I don’t even know how to respond. She’s spent the last five minutes disparaging this man, only to turn around and remind me that he and I are alike. She’s infuriating, and kind of a jerk. It’sno wonder Davis overdid it. He had to tie one on to put up with her shit.
“You know what, Tati? You’re so high and mighty, you can’t see a good thing when it’s standing right in front of you. Davis cares about you, and I know you’re into him. But you’re going to nitpick him to death, the way you do every guy you date. It’s no wonder none of them stick around. You’reexhausting.”
She stares at me, neck flushed, eyes swampy.
“Go home,” she says.
For the second time today, I’m awash in shame. It’s not that I didn’t mean what I said, but I could’ve framed it better. I could have been more sensitive. More sisterly. “Tati—”
“I don’t want to hear it,” she says, shuffling through a stack of papers.
“But I didn’t—”
“Piper!” she yells, slamming her hand down on the desk.
I startle.
Her head whips toward the closed door. Brigitte has to have heard.
Tati takes a breath. Then, in a terrifyingly calm voice, she says, “Get. Out.”
She turns her chair to face the wall behind her desk.
For seconds that feel like eternities, my mouth gapes soundlessly while I scrabble for a way to make this right. But I know she won’t hear me out. I pushed too hard—I get that—but Tati, as usual, refuses to entertain the idea that maybe, every once in a while, she’s wrong.
I slink out of my sister’s office, meeting Brigitte’s shocked gaze for a fleeting moment.
I leave the Towers through the lobby doors, stepping into the warm sunshine.
What a glaring contradiction to the day I’ve had.
***
I walk to a gelato shop tucked into a strip mall a mile from home. I eat a scoop of hazelnut, sitting on the curb, breathing in exhaust and defeat.
I think about calling Henry.
I think about changing my hair again.
I think about texting Gabi. She’s good at working through conflict—at least, she used to be. The report card I brought home after the first anniversary of my parents’ accident was littered with D’s, and Tati went through the roof. I couldn’t understand why she wouldn’t cut me some slack. My parents weredead. I called Gabi to complain, and after spending a few minutes commiserating, she pointed out that maybe it wasn’t the grades, exactly, that’d made Tati mad. Maybe it was the fact that I wasn’t doing my best.
“You’re super smart, Piper,” she’d said. “I know that, and so does your sister. But you’ve still got to work hard. I think that’s what your parents would want, and it’s obviously what Tati wants.”
And yeah, in hindsight, she was right.
After I finish my gelato, I wander the length of the stripmall, my shoes scuffing the sidewalk with each forlorn step. I don’t enjoy fighting with Tati, but we’ve had such a combative dynamic for so long, I don’t know how to shift it. I’m not going to apologize for an argument that was equally her fault. I’m not going to stop being myself.
And my job…I’m still breathless with the loss. I practically spat in the face of the good man who could’ve helped me make my dream a reality. I let a hailstorm of emotion drive my decision-making without bothering to consider the ramifications of my actions, just like Tati’s always saying. I sullied my sanctuary, my happiest place.
A storefront with a colorful sign catches my eye: Ink Isle. A tattoo parlor I’ve never paid attention to because my sister hates body modifications and has threatened me with boarding school should I ever come home with a speck of ink.
WE PIERCE TOO! announces a sign in the window.
I push open the door, ramifications be damned.
