Page 104 of House of Bass

“A life I didn’t really ask for.” She turns to me, her voice shakes a little, a vulnerability that I often don’t see coming to light. “I especially want nothing to do with him. To be publicly known as his, it makes my skin crawl.”

Her disgust is palpable and I understand where it comes from. The dinner from last month sits at the forefront of her mind and I can’t blame her. I sit up and bring her along with me, latching her hands with mine. Taking a deep breath before I speak.

“From the day I was born, my life has never been my own. Be it our father trying to mold me in his image or my mother wanting to make me her perfect doll. I had grown disgusted with myself, I didn’t want to live in my own skin hoping like the serpents on our crest I’d be able to shed it and be made into someone who could stomach herself. Except none of that happened and now I’m twenty years old and it’s fully sinking in how entirely unadjusted I am as a human being.

“Then, you came into my life. Confident and unwilling to make yourself into another clone who moved to the beat of the fucked up standards of our life. Your existence changed everything for me. I had given up on myself and if I’m being entirely honest you were the one to bring me back to the girl I thought was lost. So yes, he has to be your father and I’m grateful for that because it gave me you. I want the world to know that you’re my sister and even more that I am proud of it.” Her green eyes are welling up. One blink and they’ll fall.

At the sight, my own set of tears blur my vision. I finish, “I don't know I managed to live twenty years without you but I don’t ever want to do it again.”

Before the rest of my words leave my mouth, she throws herself at me in a hug. I’m so stumped by how out of character it is for half a second that my arms just hang there but I quickly regain consciousness and wrap my arms around her.

“I love you, Annabel,” Harley says softly and the dam breaks.

The tears descend and I hold onto her tighter than ever. “I love you, too.”

When we pull back, I hand her the small box that has been resting in my robe. “Something to fully embrace you into our home. Happy birthday.”

Harley smiles as she takes out the silver chain and the harp pendant on the necklace. Completing the Summer Triangle necklaces that Stassie and I owned, and she now did too. “It’s beautiful. I love it, thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Put it on me,” she says.

We get up and head to the mirror, I gasp at the person I see looking back at me. Streaks of mascara drips down my face, my blush and lipstick is all smudged. “Mother will kill me.”

She laughs.

“Don’t laugh, this is serious.”

“I’m sure it is, come on I’ll help you. I don’t look the prize myself either right now.”

We are out of the house within the hour; The parents are already in the limo, Anastasia with them. The two of us slid into the silent limo; Stass and my father both busy on their phones while my mother is unwrapping a Weather’s as she stares out the window.

“Took you both long enough,” my father says. “We have been waiting twenty minutes.”

“What happened to no sweets, especially before an event?” I ask my mother instead.

“That’s what I said and she wouldn’t pass me one either,” Anastasia whines.

“Frankly, after the year I’ve had I think I deserve it,” she responds, deadpan, glaring at her husband. She glances up and down at me, and I can tell she is trying her very hardest not to critique. “You look lovely. And you too, Harley.”

My jaw hangs from this, today is truly a day filled with surprises. Maybe my mother feels like she can now break free from the shackles of tradition that confined her to perfectionism.

Harley looks to me skeptically before giving her a smile that actually resembles a grimace. “Thank you, Eleanor.”

“Close your mouth, St. Annabel. It’s unladylike.” Perhaps not too much has changed.

In the nick of time we arrive together, fashionably late. My father speaks before we open the limo to the influx of cameras, “Smiles on, everyone. Today will be a good day.”

And we listen because if there is one thing my father knows it is how to make a bad thing look good. The house of Bass is in shambles, we were dysfunctional but a unit and today everyone will know just how much.

The limo door opens and the cameras blind us until we are behind the large gold door of the venue. A hush falls across the room at the five of us but truly the attention is on Harley. Whispers follow the further we walk in.

“Ignore them. They mean nothing.”

“I know.”

The room is magnificent; two huge chandeliers hang uniformly with candlelight centred around. There are a couple people dancing to a live orchestra playing in the corner.