“What?” Those allergies changed my whole life. “You think I made that up?”
“You needed a good excuse to diet and be skinny.”
My eyes bulge at the ceiling. At all my memories flashing on it like a movie screen. “You don’t remember when I started throwing up almost every day after lunch?”
“Yeah, weren’t you bulimic?”
My mouth falls open. “No way.”
“A lack of calories also explained your flightiness.”
Flightiness? “You mean my brain fog, a symptom of a gluten allergy?”
“Sis, you gotta admit you’re still flighty.”
I open my mouth to argue.
“Fire truck.”
I close my mouth. She has me there. But I can’t believe that all this time she’d thought I had an eating disorder. No wonder she harasses me about food. “I didn’t think I could have allergies either, but Mrs. Prescott, our volleyball coach, is the one who recommended I stop eating wheat and dairy.”
“Then you lost all that weight, and everybody started telling you how you looked like a model. You seriously have allergies?”
“Yes. I was sick a lot in elementary school too, just not as bad.” Her view of my world is blowing my mind. “I didn’t know you were jealous.”
“Jealousisthe correct word for it. My favorite definition of the word jealousy is being vigilant in guarding something you already have. I was afraid of losing my relationship with you.” Her voice breaks, and I feel it in my own throat.
“I miss it too.” For ten years I’ve missed our friendship. I’ve missed sharing clothes and jokes and adventures. “I’ve missed being your biggest cheerleader. Lately, I’ve been cheering against you. Jealousy is awful.”
She’s quiet for a moment. I must have said too much too soon. “What damaged our relationship wasn’t the jealousy then. It was the envy.”
I’m not following. But I sense she’s about to get counselor-ish. And I love that I can sense this.
“While jealousy is the fear of losing what you already have, envy is wanting what someone else has. Envy is destructive.”
I inhale that truth, and like Vicks VapoRub, it burns a little in the healing process.
“I didn’t see it before,” she confesses. “I told myself I was saving our relationship by rigging homecoming court. I was trying to keep us together. But my envy is what drove me to steal your title.”
It’s such a silly thing, being homecoming queen. Even though I would have rather had the relationship with my sister, the crown is what wedged us apart. I’ve held it against her for years, but she’s not the only one who needs to apologize. “That’s whenmyenvy started. I mean, I was already envious that you could eat whatever you wanted—”
She harrumphs, like that’s not something to envy.
“The fact that you had that much power in student council seemed to elevate you above me. Your grades got you into advanced classes, while I was still struggling with brain fog, and you were awarded scholarships to attend fancy out-of-state colleges, while I was stuck here.”
“Next to you, that’s the only way I could get any attention,” she wails.
I shrug at the ceiling, though I’m seeing her walking down the aisle at her wedding. “What do you mean? You’re the one who got married.”
“I took what I could get.” She sobers. “While you were turning away dates right and left, I only had the one boyfriend. I didn’t marry him out of love. I married him out of loneliness.”
My heart grows heavy. It hurts for her. It hurts for her ex, even though he was the one who left her. “I didn’t know this.”
“I didn’t want you to know.” Derisive chuckle. “That’s probably why I became a psychologist. To figure out all my issues on my own.”
I’d thought the only reason Grant had cheated was because Jewel spent so much time at work. I blamed her for destroying their marriage. But maybe I’m to blame in a small way too.
Karson had past abandonment issues from his mom that affected his marriage, while Jewel had me. No, her envy doesn’t justify the choices she made, but also, if I hadn’t been so envious of what I deemed as her success, I could have been there for her in the way a sister should.
