Page 19 of House of Bass

“I only have twenty minutes until I have to get back. Phil is helping me distract mum for a bit,” she says in a rush, her voice a whisper. Phil is our sort of butler, he’s been there for as long as I have been alive, longer even. Him and Lydia, our house manager, have been married and looking after Stassie and I our whole lives.

“How’s she been?” I ask, feeling our mother is likely more full-on than normal.

“A little spaced out,” Stassie reveals with a sigh. “Staying in her room a lot, forgetting important schedules and so on. Her and dad haven’t really spoken much either, it’s been yelling or silence.”

I’m a little surprised at what she says. “Do you need me to come home for a bit? I will.”

“No, it’s fine. I can handle it, I’ll just make sure to keep an extra note of everything. Phil and Tyler will help me,” she cheerfully says. Tyler is her bodyguard, who is a little bit of a year older than her, mother thought he is too young for the job but with him being Joe’s son, Joe had been able to convince her that he’s good. I take note of Stassie’s tone, trying to assess whether or not she is shielding me from the extent of how bad it has gotten at home.

“Forget that, how do we feel about Harley?”

“I’ve told you everything,” I state.

“Over text. It’s not the same as hearing it from your mouth, that way I can tell if you’re pretending to be okay or not.”

“I’m okay… I just don’t know if she’ll ever want anything more from me. She seems pretty okay in just doing her own thing but there’s a sense of obligation I feel to make things better for her. I don’t want her to ever feel stunted from the pressure of being a Bass.”

“Annie, it’s not your job to parent but to be her sister. You can’t carry someone else’s burden as your own. It’s only been a week, Harley will come to you when she’s ready.”

She’s right and I know she’s right. I guess it’s just hard to quieten the voice in your head that makes you feel like you have to fix everything or the world will end. “When did you get so wise?”

“Always,” she sing-songs, and we both laugh at the same time.

The sound of her euphonic giggles wraps around my heart, warm and familiar, but it reminds me that I have yet to ask her how she truly felt about all this happening so suddenly, “Are you sure you’re comfortable with Harley being here?”

This sombers her, “Of course I am, you get to spend time with your sister. It doesn’t matter that she’s not mine.”

“You’ll tell me if it isn’t though, right? I don’t want you to ever feel like you’re being cast aside.”

“You’re doing it again,” Stassie chides, “If I wasn’t okay with it, I’d tell you.”

“Good, because if there’s anyone’s burden I’ll carry, it’d be yours.” Referencing what she just said.

“Just remember you were my sister first,” she says, perhaps a hint of insecurity leaking out.

“I could never forget,” I firmly say to reassure her.

She talks my ear off for another fifteen minutes until we both hear our mother calling for her and she has no choice but to hang up with promises of a longer call for next time. I stay seated where I am for a few more minutes when I receive a text message from MJ, whose name is saved under Mary-Jane because that’s what I assumed MJ stood for when we first met.

MARY-JANE

Where are you? Why is your location off?

ANNABEL

SJP

MARY-JANE

Turn it back on. I’ll be there soon.

✧✧✧

Resting my back against the bench, I close my eyes in the hopes to ignore the stares of the tourists who likely recognise me. However, I hear MJ grumbling before I even see her, I open them to her toddling towards me in her red bottoms wrapped in a dark fur coat as her hair falls down in perfect waves. She dramatically perches herself in the empty space next to me.

“J’ai eu la pire semaine de ma vie,” she declares. I have had the worst week of my life.

Other than brief hi’s down the university corridors, we have barely had time to see each other. Mostly, I have been cancelling catch-ups because the dormant state where I left my feelings for Arden is bubbling to the point where it has become harder to ignore and any day now it is going to erupt. The guilt of this truth is eating at me.