Today was no exception. I loved seeing her in my room, taping fallen quotes back onto the wall. It warmed me. When I saw which ones they were, it was even more perfect. She really was the sun I couldn’t look at but wanted to.
And for fuck’s sake, she had grown, which made it worse. It was easier when she was younger—awkward and festering with hormones. I could shut the door. Tell her to leave. Even roll my eyes. But now, Tabitha was a young woman, getting more and more comfortable in her own skin. I’d heard she had a boyfriend, and I already hated him. I knew she hadn’t had sex with him yet, and somehow that relieved me. It wasn’t those big brown eyes that could get away with frigging murder. It’s that look girls got after they made love. Like they’d crossed some rite of passage and could now truly become a woman. It’s all bullshit and in the mind, but it’s a look and aura I noticed, and I was never wrong.
Tabitha was still a virgin. A part of me wanted her to stay that way.
“Tomorrow, we’re going over to Uncle Derek’s and Auntie Sam’s house for dinner,” my mom said in my direction. “They’d love for you to be there.”
Derek. Wasn’t that the name of Tabitha’s boyfriend? A little warped, if you asked me.
“Yeah, that’s fine.”
“Are you sure?” Tabitha picked up her glass of ginger ale daintily, like it was wine. “We wouldn’t want to interrupt one of your back-home booty calls.”
My sister snorted out a laugh, and my mom only glared at her while hiding her own smirk. Jesus, they were terrible parents. No, they were great parents, just bad at discipline. I could brush it off by saying that they couldn’t control Tabitha since she wasn’t their daughter, but there’s no way Tabitha would talk like that in front of them if it was frowned upon. Both our sets of parents were more on the unconventional side, having always treated us more like adults than kids. Even to the point of letting us decide our own punishments, which should be every kid’s wet dream. But it wasn’t when you had an actual damn conscience.
I’d punished myself far worse than my parents would have done in the past, which worried them for a time. What they didn’t know was that whenever I’d grounded myself, it was really just an excuse to leave my so-called friends for a time to read and be me.
“If any last-minute plans come up, I’ll cancel,” I said before downing half my wine. Something Tabitha wasn’t served at the table. Our parents may have been open-minded, but teenage drinking was a big fat no in our houses. Since I was five months away from twenty-one, they let the wine slide.
Tabitha ripped into her steak like she was cutting through my flesh. “You should save my mother the trouble of cooking extra if you think you’ll have better plans.”
“I’ll be there,” I finally said.
She responded by chewing her meat and giving a slight shrug. She didn’t believe me. I wasn’t sure why. I’d never lied to her before.
“Will your boyfriend be there?” I asked.
Her eyes lit up, and I realized I’d just planted the damn idea in her brain.
“Oh, you want to meet him?” She gave a mischievous grin. “I’m sure I can arrange that.”
My mother shook her head and changed the subject. “So, how are your classes coming along?”
Internally, I shuddered. “I like my writing class. The professor’s good.” As for the rest, it could go fuck itself.
“What’s your plan?” my dad asked. “Graduation is next year.”
This was where I felt envious of my little sister and Tabitha. The questions they got were about which school or what major instead of real-life questions like what they were going to do with their lives. The truth was I had some semblance of a clue. I just didn’t know how to package it with a pretty bow. What I really wanted wasn’t feasible, like being a banker or a lawyer. There was a straight and narrow path to those careers. Mine entailed maybes and what-ifs.
“I want to be a travel writer.” I took a bite of my steak, waiting for the objections to roll in.
“A what?” My dad squinted his eyes in confusion, as if he’d never heard of the title.
“Travel the world,” I said with a touch of sarcasm. “And write about it.”
I looked around the table, and the only one smiling was Tabitha. “That’s incredible, Reed.” And she meant it. “If you do it, promise me you’ll see the moonbow.”
“The what?” I asked.
“It’s like a rainbow, but you can only see it in the moonlight. There’s, like, only seven places in the world where you can see it.”
How the hell did she know this and I didn’t?
“Where would you go to see it?” I asked.
“There are some amazing places to see it, but I’d like a more obscure place where most people wouldn’t expect to find it.” She smiled, and I damn near melted. “Kentucky. Cumberland Falls. Who would’ve guessed something that amazing would be in Kentucky?”
“Consider it on my list,” I said blindly. I didn’t lie, but how could I promise something like that? Why would I promise something like that?
“You should have a backup plan.” My dad shoved mashed potato into his mouth and washed it down with a gulp of water. “You know, just in case the travel thing doesn’t work out.”
He was right. I knew he was right, but it pissed me off just the same.
“You should start now,” Tabitha put in, ignoring his statement. “Get a blog going. Maybe do a small road trip and take some pictures of obscure places no one really knows about.”
That wasn’t a bad idea.
“Maybe,” I said.
“I can help if you want.” She shrugged, not looking me in the eyes. “With setting up the blog and stuff.”
“Tabitha helped with my YouTube make-up channel,” my sister added. “She’s really good.”
“If I do it, I’m sure I can figure it out,” I said.
Tabitha’s face fell when I said that, and it squeezed around my heart. I wanted to say something to make her smile again, but it was best to leave it alone. The last thing we needed was to spend time together. We were on very different paths, and Tabitha was off-limits.
4
Meeting the Boyfriend
Tabitha
My plan to make Reed jealous at dinner was a complete and utter failure. He barely looked at Derek and me the entire night. My overdone attempts at flirting were met with weird glances from Paige and my parents, but Reed must have thought I was like that with Derek all the time and he wasn’t surprised or, worse, he didn’t care. The only reaction I did get from him was a glance of disgust when he caught us tongue wrestling goodnight in the driveway, which pretty much represented how I felt about it as well. I counted to nine this time instead of the usual seven. Not fun.
“What’s with him?” Derek nodded toward Reed, who was already heading down the sidewalk back to his house.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“He got a thing for you or something?”
I snorted. “Pfft, if the goal of making me miserable can be called a thing, then yeah.”