“You usually do,” I say.
She ignores that.
Sienna finally looks at me. “You didn’t mention you had a sister.”
No accusation in it. That almost makes it worse.
“No,” I say. “I didn’t.”
Anna lets out a quiet breath. “Well, now she knows.”
I look at her. “That’s enough.”
For once, she hears the tone and doesn’t push. She glances at Sienna, then back at me, and whatever she sees seems to tell her there’s more here than she wants to step into.
“I’m going to bed,” she says.
Neither of us stops her.
She starts down the corridor, then pauses and looks back at me. “Try not to make things worse.” Then she leaves.
The hallway feels quieter after she’s gone, but not easier.
I look at Sienna. She folds her arms and says nothing, which tells me two things at once: she wants answers, and she has no intention of asking the first question plainly.
“What happened?” I ask.
She gives a small, humorless breath. “You tell me.”
Interesting.
“I wasn’t here,” I say.
“No,” she says. “You weren’t.”
I step closer, not enough to crowd her, only enough to stop pretending this is casual. “Sienna.” Her eyes lift to mine. “What did Anna say to you?”
She hesitates. Not long, but long enough to tell me the answer matters.
Then she says, “Not much.”
I almost smile at that. Almost.
“Not much doesn’t usually leave people looking like that.”
“And what do I look like?”
“Tired,” I say. “Confused. As if you just found out something you weren’t expecting.”
She looks away for a second, then back. “Maybe I did.”
I wait.
She doesn’t continue.
Of course she doesn’t.
I know my sister well enough to understand the possibilities. Anna can unsettle a room by choosing one sentence over another. If she decided to be difficult, she was. If she decided to be protective, she was probably worse.
