She doesn’t let me speak. “Did you go?”
“What?”
“Did you?” she demands.
I look at the time on the dashboard.
It’s after 2AM and she sounds wide awake. She sounds like she never went to sleep. “What the — Are you okay? Where are you?”
“Okay, first of all, I’m fine. I’m in my dorm room of course, watching Netflix. You don’t have to sound so freaked out and go into your Big Brother Mode. And second of all, did you go or not?”
I sigh and sit back.
Her calls in the middle of the night aren’t a rarity. Plus to be fair, her calls don’t always mean bad news.
Sometimes my sister just calls because she can’t sleep.
Because she just saw a movie or a show that she really wants to talk about and she chooses me because apparently, I’m her BFF. I think it’s best friend forever or something fucked up like that.
But I’m also her brother, herbigbrother.
So obviously, I’m going to freak the fuck out if I get a call from her at an odd time.
“Pest, what have I told you about calling in the middle of the night? When it’s not an emergency.”
She mumbles, “You said to not do it.”
“Yes. And why is that?”
“Because it freaks you out.”
“Correct. So what do we do when we get the urge to call Reed? Just for the fuck of it.”
She sighs sharply. “We stop ourselves and we try to go to sleep.”
“Good.”
“Fuck you, Reed. You don’t have to be such an asshole. And just so you know, thisisan emergency.”
My lips twitch as I rest my elbow on the window and put my head back against the seat. “What is it?”
“Did you go or not?”
“Did I go where?”
“You know where. Did you go to the bar or not, Reed?”
“No.”
She gasps. “You’re lying. You’re lying to me. To your own sister.”
I close my eyes and bang my head against the seat a few times. “How the fuck do you know I’m lying?”
“Because I saw your picture,” she explains. “One of your stupid girlfriends posted a picture of you on her Insta. With location. Ballad of the Bards. You can’t outrun social media, bro.”
Fucking Insta.
It’s how half the time my sister knows what I’m up to. I usually tell people to keep it on the down low. That I don’t want the whole world to know what I’m doing. But apparently, it’s a big ask.
