But…

But I couldn’t just walk out of here, letting her think that she’d pulled a fast one on me. As much as I might want to believe she wouldn’t do that… she had. Or at least, she was trying to, and I couldn’t let that small thing go away. Not this time.

“Why didn’t you tell me you moved?” I asked her, ignoring how numb my voice sounded.

She paused, and the face I knew so well grimaced just a little but just enough. “I just…” Was she trying to think of a lie? “I… I didn’t want to bother you.”

She didn’t want to bother me.

Maybe I had literally hours ago said those exact words to Rip, but that had been because I didn’t want to ask him for help.

My sister moving out of her apartment wasn’t bothering. Why would that be bothering? How would that be bothering?

Thea must have realized how weak that excuse was because she gave me a smile that time that was just as fake as her last one had been. “My roommate invited me to come live here with her, but she doesn’t like people coming over, so I didn’t see a point in telling you and then….”

Having to tell me I wasn’t allowed to spend the night? After I had paid for our apartment all on my own while she had lived with me for three years? I would have understood.

She knew that.

I wasn’t unreasonable. I could have stayed at a hotel.

But she had always shut down every time Lily and I brought up coming to visit. Every single time. Instantly. Over and over and over again over the years.

Hadn’t Kyra come and stayed with her a few months ago? I wondered for a moment before deciding I didn’t want to know. In case she was lying to me.

I scraped my tongue against the roof of my mouth as I stood there and nodded like I understood. But I really didn’t. Not even a little.

Thea watched me carefully, back to wringing her hands.

I bit my bottom lip.

I was loved. I was happy. I had my own place. I was a decent person.

And Rip had driven me all the way to Dallas to come see my sister because she had asked.

I wasn’t going to feel ashamed or bad. I wasn’t going to let this get to me. Even if she was one of the last people in this world who I would have ever expected to hurt me the way she just had.

I was going to choose to be happy after this.

“Okay, Thea,” I told her carefully, not able to muster up more than just a smile that consisted of a twisted cheek. “Let me know if you need anything, all right?” I still found myself offering.

She… she just nodded.

I took a step back and thought about that hug I wished I could or would have given her, but she didn’t step forward or make a move to make it seem like she wanted one either.

So I let my hands drop to my sides.

“Take care,” I told her, hearing how wooden it came out.

She didn’t even flinch. “Drive safe,” she told me like she had a hundred other times when things between us were fine and normal. The scratch she made to her cheek was the only thing that told me that she might feel a little bad. And just a little. I didn’t expect much more than that.

I thought I was a strong person. I was forgiving. More patient than most people I knew. I wasn’t really that petty. I didn’t expect a lot from anyone, ever.

But as I walked around my sister with my eyes glued in front of me, I felt shittier than I could ever remember in the last ten years.

It honestly, genuinely, felt like my heart was breaking. Or maybe the fracture had always been there and it was getting wider and deeper, cutting into me even more than before. I hadn’t thought it was possible.

I went down the hallway and opened her door, fisting my hands at my sides and breathing in through my nose and out of my mouth.

She didn’t call out after me.

She didn’t change her mind about me leaving.

I felt Rip’s presence, heard the door slam shut behind us. I bit the inside of my cheek and jogged down the stairs, not running but not walking. And when I hit the first floor, with Rip’s steps close by, I stopped there, giving him just enough room to go around me.

I wasn’t going to feel bad. I was going to be happy. I was fine.

My hands went to my hips, and I took a deep breath in through my nose, feeling myself shaking my head more than actually being aware of the decision that I did it.

There was no way for me to ignore the subtle but sharp pain going on right in my solar plexus as I stopped there.

“I just need a minute,” I told Rip quietly, still in front of him so that he couldn’t see my face.

His “all right” was just as low and soft as my request had been, but I was in no condition to analyze it in any way.

I nodded, hoping he’d seen it, and I started walking again.

I was choosing to be happy. I was choosing to be happy. I was—

Not.

I wasn’t happy. I couldn’t even wrangle a little bit of it. Not a speck of it.

My feet took me into the parking lot, past Rip’s truck. They took me down the middle of the lot in the muggy Dallas air. I walked to the end of the building and back, breathing in through my nose and out of my mouth, shaking my head every once in a while. The entire time, not letting myself think about how sad and hurt I felt. Not letting myself think of how not happy I was in that moment.

I tried with everything in me to force my mind blank as I turned around and walked back in the direction I had come.

I wasn’t going to cry. I wasn’t going to get upset.

This was not the worst thing that had ever happened to me. My sister telling me I couldn’t stay with her. My sister referring to me as her half-sister. My own fucking sister not wanting me around for whatever reason.

I had driven out here because she had asked. Not because I expected anything.

But I had expected more than to get sent home after ten minutes of being inside her place after she’d called me upset.

I specifically didn’t let myself think of how she had disregarded me.

Pushed me aside.

I bit the inside of my cheek again and cracked the knuckles of my hands as I kept walking.

Rip didn’t care. He would never shame me for what happened or make fun of me, I knew that in the center of my bones.

Nope, this burn had nothing to do with him.

Nothing.

One single tear slid out of my eye and right along my nose, brushing the side of my mouth as it kept slipping down and over my chin.

I blinked.

She hadn’t even tried to hug me.

After everything—

She didn’t even bother wanting to take a second and talk to me. Just in and out. Out you go. Bye.

I squeezed my hands harder into fists as I approached Rip’s truck and found him leaning against it, arms crossed over his chest, him watching me. His face was blank, for all intents and purposes. He even had one foot crossed over the other.

I tipped my head back to look at the sky, covered in charcoal gray clouds and lit up by city lights.

And I took a deep breath.

Then I took another.

But those breaths didn’t do a single thing.

Not one single thing as another tear escaped my eye and followed the track the first one had left for it.

This croak built up in my throat, and my instincts tried their hardest to keep from letting it out. I even had my mouth closed, but this tiny sound escaped, sounding like a whine. Sounding pathetic and sad and like a note something made when it broke.

And another tear came out.

Then another.

And another closed-mouth noise escaped.

“One more minute,” I slipped out, sucking in a shuddering breath that probably mutilated the words and had them sounding like something totally different.

I heard his “all right” just as I sucked in another breath, just as another tear slid out of my eye.

I had no reason to cry.

My sister loved me, I knew it. She was just… I didn’t know what she was doing or why she was being that way.

Sometimes you outgrew people.

Maybe that’s what she had done. Moved on from her high-school dropout sister who painted cars for a living. Her half-sister since that’s how she thought of me now.

And it was that half that was the prick I needed for more tears to roll out of my eyes. One after another, after another, until I had the meaty parts of my palms tucked into my eye sockets, diverting the flow of one traitorous tear after another.