“She’s at Almond’s for a girlie birthday sleepover,” he informs her. “Perfect timing, that. Means I can be here to help out my other little sister. If she’d stop trying to send me awaywith my evil twin, anyway.” And then, he pouts. Sticks his stupid bottom lip out andpouts.
“Are you kidding me?” I ask. “Is this a joke?”
“I never joke about being the good twin,” he replies before fluttering his lashes at Poem.
Her stupid, beautiful, entrancing lips twitch.
“I promise to be on my best water-repellant behavior,” he says.
She sighs. “Fine, you can stay, but he–” She turns to me, nose scrunched. “–cannot.”
I fold my arms across my chest and huff. “I’m not leaving. I will, however, get started on getting your furniture up off the ground and out of the water. Do you have anything plastic we can use to prop stuff up, or should I improvise?”
She glowers at me.
I realize quickly that she’s not going to answer.
I sigh. “Do you have to be so–”
The door opens behind me, cutting me off and freezing me where I stand.
Chapter Seven
?
Breaking news: Men often act like men, and women often act like women. More at ten.
Fox
“I know you’re not about to call that sweet girl a mean name while she’s standing in her flooded house, Fox Blackwood,” my mother’s voice cuts behind me, eliciting a wince.
“Of course not,” I lie, turning to face her in the doorway. “What are you doing here?”
She scans the room, tutting. “You didn’t let us know if things were okay. Clearly because they weren’t.” Her arms open, aimed at Poem. “Come here, honey. This is just awful. And after all that work you had done.”
Dad’s head peeks into the house as Poem skirts around me to accept my mother’s embrace, sniffling.
Great. Now she’s going to be emotional and crying and I’m going to have to keep my hands all to myself instead of, say, dragging her away to a nice, safe place where nothing bad happens ever and she spends her days being spoiled by me and receiving everything she’s ever wanted.
Perfect.
“Everything is fine,” I offer. “There is nothing happening here that isn’t fixable.”
Dad nods, surveying the water, but Mom is less than impressed with my conclusion. “Fixable doesn’t mean easy,” she says. “And fixable doesn’t mean it’s not going to suck. Don’t diminish Poem’s problems like that.”
My jaw aches as my teeth grind, and I make a concentrated effort to loosen it. “I’m not diminishing her problems,” I reply. “I’m pointing out that it’s not going to be like this forever. It’s not like she lost her whole house. I’m being encouraging.”
Mom’s nose scrunches. “You’re being aboyis what you’re being. It’s disappointing.”
She has no way to know how deep those words sliver in or how many cuts they leave along the way. It’s a flippant remark meant to mildly chastise me while bringing a smile to Poem’s face. She doesn’t mean anything serious by it. I know that.
And yet.
Ouch.
“I only wanted her to know that all hope isn’t lost,” I mutter, squelching my way to the dining room.
“Yes, well, right now isn’t the time for logic, Fox. It’s the time for comfort.”
