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Her eyes lift to look at me and all of her usual superior confidence is gone. In this moment she looks young and terrified.
I move without thought, pulling her to me and wrapping her in my arms while I hold her against my chest. She stiffens, not returning my hug, and somehow that only makes me want to hold her tighter. Both Priss and Tally are fucked up, but where Tally is a fighter, I’m not sure that Priss is, at least not at the minute.
Maybe Tally has been right all along, maybe Priss is just as much a victim of this money and their parents’ greed as she was. Either that or she’s just an incredibly good actress.
Reluctantly I release her and her timid eyes find mine again, only now they’re full of confusion. “Come on Priss, let’s go find you something your mom would fucking hate,” I say with a smile, reaching for her hand and entwining my fingers with hers, as I tow her toward the first shop I spot with women’s clothes in the window.
“What size do you wear?” I ask, not letting go of her hand as I weave in and out of rails, searching for jeans.
“A two.”
“Jesus,” I murmur, grabbing clothes from rails and then moving her toward the changing room. “Here, try these on,” I say, thrusting the piles of clothes into her arms.
“I can’t wear these,” she says, lifting the tiny pair of black shorts into the air.
“Sure you can, Tally has a pair smaller than that and she looks hot as fuck in them. Just try them on, I’ve never seen you in anything but school uniform and those tight dresses you seem to like so much.”
“I’m not my sister,” she spits, glaring at me.
“I am well aware of that Priss. I wasn’t suggesting you dress like her, more that as you’re fucking identical and she looks good in shorts, you would too. So stop being so fucking difficult and just go and try them,” I say, pushing her gently into the changing room and drawing the curtain.
Turning I wander the racks again, grabbing a couple of pretty summer dresses that seem more her style, in case she has a meltdown over the jean shorts, then make my way back to the changing rooms again. “How’s it going?” I ask.
“I look weird,” she says from behind the curtain.
“Come show me,” I say, swallowing the laugh that tries to break free.
Slowly the curtain pulls back and she’s standing there, the tight dress gone and in its place, skinny jeans and a pink t-shirt. “You look about twelve,” I say, chuckling at how uncomfortable she looks.
“Oh my god,” she cries, trying to draw the curtain back.
I reach out and stop her. “The jeans look good on you, but the top is far too third grade.” Rooting through the pile of clothes I’m holding, I pull out a fitted white cami top, similar to one I’ve seen Tally wear in the past. “Try this one instead.”
“This is so humiliating, I have a closet full of couture, why are we buying off the rack?” she moans, pulling the curtain closed. “I still look weird,” she announces a couple of minutes later as she opens the curtain with a flourish.
“You look hot,” I say, eyeing the way the floaty fabric of the shirt clings to her tits and how tiny her waist is in the jeans. It’s so small I think I could wrap my hands around her and my thumbs would touch.
She turns to look at herself in the mirror, her brow wrinkling with distaste. “I think the last time I wore jeans I really was twelve.”
“Tally wears jeans.”
“Never out in public, Mom says they’re the clothes of the working class.”
“Priss, your mom is a bitch,” I say coldly, hating that Vanessa Archibald ever had a chance to damage both of her daughters so much.
Priss’s laugh is high and sweet. “She really is. I look weird but just out of spite I’m buying the jeans because she’d be appalled to see me wearing them. Can we get some sneakers too, and a sweatshirt? Oh and I need a hairband, I want to tie my hair up.”
A smile spreads across my lips as I take in her moment of rebellion. It looks good on her, it softens her edges a little and makes me forget, at least for a moment, that she’s not as innocent as she looks.
In the end we leave the mall with Priss wearing tiny jean shorts, a white tank, pink converse, and a white baggy hooded sweater, with the jeans and top she tried in a bag dangling from her fingers.
Out of the sexy dresses and six-inch heels, Priss looks younger, sweeter, and sad. There’s an innate melancholy in her eyes that I don’t think I’ve ever seen in someone our age before. When Arlo backed Tally into a corner she came out swinging, throwing barbs with her words and making sure that we all knew how pissed she was. But Carrigan doesn’t seem to have that fire. I can sense something beneath the perfect exterior, but it’s so stifled that I’m not sure it would emerge even if she was really pushed to the edge.
The Archibald’s really have done a number on this pair. It makes me wonder if Tally had been the eldest twin how she would have reacted to her parents’ manipulations? Would she have let them treat her like a cash cow, or would she have rebelled before it dissolved to threats and violence?
The moment we get into my car, all of Priss’s spite driven rebellion dissolves and she becomes quiet and withdrawn. There doesn’t seem to be an ounce of fight in her right now. I shouldn’t care, Carrigan isn’t my friend or my problem, but there’s something about seeing a glimpse of fire and then watching it be doused that’s affected me. I’m not sure if it’s sympathy I’m feeling but I need to be careful. Carrigan Archibald has spent years playing men, toying with them, flirting with them, and generally doing whatever her evil bitch of a mother taught her to do to snag her a husband. She’s not above manipulation to get what she wants.
Pulling into a drive through fast food place just around the corner from the marina I turn to Priss. “What do you want to eat?”
