‘What for?’
I shrugged. ‘To chat. The whole thing was weird honestly.’
An odd expression crossed Rosie’s face. One I couldn’t read, or was simply too tired to decipher. ‘What did you two even talk about?’
‘Uh, she mostly talked about herself, but she asked me about the book. I guess since Evan met Oliver at the stadiumthey’ve finally decided I’m not lying about it, she was curious.’
‘What did you tell her about the book?’ Her voice turned urgent.
‘Nothing,’ I said defensively. Finally, it clicked. ‘Wait, you don’t think—I didn’t say anything to her, at least not details anyway. This article included full paragraphs I’d written.’
She took a breath, ‘Okay. Let me lay this out. Your sister who in your entire twenty-eight years of life hasn’t given a flaming rats-arse about you’—seeing me wince, Rosie clicked her fingers in front of my face to get me to look at her—‘which isherloss by the way. She suddenly decides that now you’re writing a biography about a famous footballer to pop round out of the blue, and the next morning an article is being published with things that can only be found on your laptop.’
‘I don’t-‘
Rosie didn’t let me finish. ‘Did you leave her alone at any point whilst she was here?’
I went over the entire night, a shiver racing down my spine when I recalled it. ‘When I went to change,’ I said quietly.
Anger flared Rosie’s nostrils. ‘Where’s your laptop.’
I made no move to stop her as she craned her neck looking for it. Partly because I had no energy and partly because my brain was still struggling to keep up. ‘Why?’
Spotting it behind me, Rosie grabbed my laptop from the sofa and dragged it onto her lap. She clicked on the mousepad, her eyes scanning the screen. ‘Your sister is many things, but I’m counting on the fact that for the most part she’s an overconfident moron.’ She frowned at the screen, exhaling a disbelieving laugh. ‘And… stupidity for the win.’ She turned my laptop around which had my email page open.
My eyes pinched as I tried to see what she was talking about. ‘My brain isn’t working, what am I looking at?’
‘Your laptop is always out and you don’t have it password protected, so when you went to change Charlotte went searching.’
‘I don’t-‘
‘She found the few pages in your recent files that she could access quickly and emailed them to herself. She then deleted the email, but forgot to also delete it from the trash bin.’
Rosie pointed to the screen. In my trash folder along with several spam emails about beauty products and erectile dysfunction tablets, was an email sent from me to Charlotte.
‘Why would she do that?’ My voice came out in barely more than a whisper.
Rosie squeezed my arm. ‘I guess on a surface level, she wanted to know about the sexy footballer. But, babe, you were doing something with your life. You were succeeding after years of being viewed as a failure in your family’s fucked up eyes.’
I shook my head, fresh tears forming. ‘She wouldn’t do this.’
‘She did.’ Rosie said matter-of-factly.
’No. This is ridiculous. I know we’ve never really got along, but this is-‘Not possible. She wouldn’t.
The laptop slid from my lap as I stood up. Rosie caught it before it hit the floor.
‘What are you doing?’ she called, a look of concern bleeding from her eyes as she watched me frantically search my flat.
‘She wouldn’t,’ I repeated, fumbling in my bag on the kitchen counter, and snatching my phone.
I held it to my ear as the dial tone sounded. It cut-out after two rings.
Rosie put the computer down, sitting on the edge of the sofa with a look of resignation on her face.
‘Fallon-‘
‘No.’ I shook my head, pressing my sister's number again. My sister was many things: selfish, spoiled, arrogant, egotistical, and more often than not, down right mean. But this? Deliberately sabotaging my job, my life. That was too far, even for her.
