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“Thank you for being here. You didn’t need to be.”
“I know that. I wanted to be. I’ll always be here when you need me.”
“Same goes.” He smiles right back.
He taps the door a few times before calling his sister’s name.
Carly?
I hear a cry-sob before I can understand any words.
Leave me a-a-alone! Just, leave me…
Then more sobs. Wracking sobs, that sound as though her whole world is ending. Josh pushes the door open and his poor sister looks like a tiny little ball under a duvet on the sofa, just her head sticking out – scarlet hair a mess, and not a scrap of makeup.
Fuck, she really has been through the wringer. I get a thump of hurt for her.
Josh is straight on over to sit down beside her, but she rejects his attempts at a hug, sobbing fresh when she sets eyes on me.
I let my instincts guide me as I close the distance and crouch down beside her, putting a hand on her knee through the duvet. She stiffens up as though I’m going to attack her, but I shake my head.
“It’s alright,” I say. “I’m on your side, ok?”
She chokes on a couple more sobs before she manages to speak to me.
“Yeah, right. Like you don’t think I deserve it.”
“I don’t think you deserve it, actually. I think he’s a prick. I think he’s always been a prick, putting himself before anyone else, and worshipping his career dreams like they’re the breath of life itself.” I look her right in the eyes. “I can imagine all the bullshit he told you, and I know it must hurt like fuck. I know how it feels to believe in him, and trust him, only for him to spit you out like you never meant shit to him.”
She nods, and blinks out a fresh round of tears. Quiet ones this time.
“I… I love him…” she says and her lip trembles.
Josh leans in at that and takes hold of his little sister, pulling her into his side and wrapping his strong arms around her as she cries.
He doesn’t speak, or try to argue with her, just rocks her steadily and lets her cry. A solid support in the midst of her pain.
My fucking God, how I love him.
He’s the epitome of everything Connor isn’t. The opposite force of nature, embodied in human form.
As Carly cries, my heart pounds, thumping with the love I feel for her brother. My guts twist for her in sympathy, and her tears hit close to home, but mine don’t fall, they just linger. I nod and smile as I look up at the man I love.
When she finally calms enough to speak, Josh hands her a tissue, and she manages a laugh as she looks at the state of his red suit jacket. Snot and tears all over it – on the other lapel from the one I massacred earlier. He’s had a double whammy.
“Sorry,” she says, then she blows her nose.
I watch her afresh, and wipe my preconceptions clean – determined to meet her anew.
Not the irritating bitch Tiff rolls her eyes about, or the little show queen, determined to captivate everyone. Not the bitch who took my ex from me, either.
She’s a young girl who wants attention, and love, and a boyfriend like Connor – with the personality to make her feel worth something.
I get it, and I get her.
We may have different ways of expressing it, and she may have chosen the prickly-walled bitch route, rather than little miss walkover like I did, but we’re peas from the same kind of pod – and we both thought Connor would be the answer.
I have more in common with her than I thought.
