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Mom answers a call as we pull up to the house and Missy and I climb out. She stumbles away from me, but I race to keep up with her.
“What did he give you?” I ask quietly, grabbing her hand to stop her before she climbs the stairs. I can hear Mom on the phone outside, complaining about the Carpenters.
Missy’s eyes dart to mine and her brow furrows, but I can see in the way her pupils are nearly completely dilated and the way she licks her lips, she’s definitely on something.
“Stop it, Hannah,” she snaps, ripping her hand out from mine. She climbs the stairs in a huff, but I follow after her anyway.
“Missy, he’s married.” She stops at the top of the landing, turning back to me with a smile.
“To a whiny old bitch with no ambition,” she says sweetly and my stomach turns when the fake smile falls off her face, being replaced with a dark scowl. I take a step back at the look on her face, almost toppling back down the stairs. In the dim lightingof the upper floor, she almost looks demonic. Terrifying. “He’s making me a partner at one of his companies.”
“It doesn’t mean it’s right. He has a family.”
She regards me with dull indifference as if I’m nothing more than a doorknob in a department store.
“You’re so naïve, it’s almost pathetic, Hannah.”
Okay, ouch.
Unfortunately, Missy takes a step forward and I can’t take a step back because the stairs are right behind me. In a rush, she lifts her hand and I actually jump as if she might hit me. Instead, she brushes the red lock of hair off my cheek, the same one Mason had.
“My poor prudish sister, pining after Mason Carpenter. As if he’d want a girl like you,” she coos, and acid turns in my stomach. “A word of advice, Hannah. You’ll never be more than Mom’s little doll because you refuse to fight back. Marry Michael and have boring sex with the lights off every Saturday night and raise two boring children because that’s all you’ll ever succeed at.”
Tears burn in my eyes and just as one is about to fall, Mom walks through the door, still on the phone and completely oblivious to what’s happening at the top of the stairs.
“Of course, Hannah would love to come with me.”
Missy cocks her head, a sinister smile tugging on her lips.
“Boo.” She jumps forward, almost knocking me down the stairs and I clamber for the railing in my heels. Missy just chuckles and goes to her room, shutting the door behind her with a final click.
“I said carnations!” My mother screeches from downstairs and I jump, again nearly toppling down the stairs and ending it all.
I go to my room, taking a shower and thinking about tonight’s events. Missy. Mom. Mason. The dark side of my sister I never knew existed. The words Mason murmured in my ear that should have sent me running in the other direction.
Men like me break girls like you, little doe.
Somehow, I know he’s right.
Still, as Mom screams from somewhere downstairs, barking orders into her phone like a deranged dictator and Missy cuts on some heavy screamo music like a teenager going through a “phase”, curling up in that old flannel, surrounded by the scent of leather, smoke, and something else that must behim, I find I feel the safest I’ve ever felt.
And I sleep through the night.
Hannah
December
“I’m not going!”
“Like hell, you’re not! I’m giving a speech. You’re expected.”
Missy growls dramatically, stomping her foot the same way she does every time she and our mother get into a fight. “I’m sick andtiredof going to these stupid charity benefits. I don’t care about these people and neither do you!”
“Your sister’s not complaining,” Mom fires back and Missy’s ire is then turned on me.
Thanks, Mom.
“Because she’s too afraid of you. You’re both pathetic.”
