Next, I video-call my sister, Maxine.
She, on the other hand, isn’t intimidated by anyone or anything.
“Dakota!” she calls out, appearing on my screen with a smile. We used to say we had matching smiles—the same small mouth and full bottom lip, a thin bowtie shaped upper lip. Guess it was all bullshit, huh? God, you sound bitter. Don’t do that to yourself, Dakota. There’s no sweetness to be found if you keep chewing on the same old sour crap. “Where are you right now?”
“My new bedroom,” I say, my voice strained and forlorn. I lift the phone up and pan it around so Maxine can see what I’m working with here. Multimillion-dollar views and about as much love and warmth as a block of ice. I turn the phone back to my face. “Maxie, I can’t do this.”
Her face softens as she sits down on the edge of her own bed.
“It can’t be all bad, right? Moving in with a famous author and a plastic surgeon? You could probably guilt-trip them into buying you a sportscar.” Maxine puts a hand to her chest, the phone jiggling around as she clutches it in the other. “A Ferrari. A white one with a red leather interior—”
“Maxie,” I scold, but I’m smiling anyway. I knew talking to Maxine would help. Besides, unlike my grandparents who are a forty-two-hour drive away from me, Maxine is going to the University of Oregon in the city of Eugene which is only four and a half hours south of here. We’re actually closer now than we were when I was living at home. Silver linings and all that. “You’re probably right, but I don’t want a Ferrari; I want to go home.”
“I know, Kota,” she says, her body deflating just a bit. “I don’t like any of this either, but you know what?”
“What?” I lie back on the bed, staring up at the screen and wishing my sister were here to wrap her arms around me the way she used to do when I was little. That’s my very first memory, of Maxine smiling at me and stroking my hair back while I sobbed. I don’t remember anything about my life with Tess before that, when I was named Mia Patterson. Not a damn thing. Not surprising, considering my age at the time.
And still, the scent of her perfume lingers. I choke a little on the thought.
“This doesn’t make us sisters any less, you know that, right?”
“Blood is thicker than water,” I spit out, and then cringe. There I go, being bitter again. But maybe I’m just not giving myself enough credit? This is a lot harder than I thought it would be.
“Wrong. That’s one of the most misused quotes in the entire world. The real quote is: the blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb. What it really means is that the family you choose is stronger than the family you’re born to.” Maxine pauses for a moment as my eyes water, and I blink back the tears I promised I wouldn’t shed. “Hey, how about I come and visit you next weekend? I’d come sooner, but I have a paper due.”
“The lawyers …” I start, and Maxine snorts, tossing her auburn curls. We always used to say she took after grandma while Mom and I took after grandpa with his espresso-colored hair. Irony, at its finest.
“Fuck lawyers, Kota. I’m not about to let some suit-wearing bigwigs tell me I can’t see my little sister. Besides …” She pauses and gives me such a goofy grin that I just know I’m about to hear about a boy. Maxine is so predictable. I smile.
“This is about Maxx—the boy with two X’s in his name, right?” I ask with a roll of my eyes. Leave it to Maxine to find a boy with virtually the same name and fall in love with him. Maxx Wright is a fellow student at the U of O, some motocross superstar, and the exact opposite of any boy Maxine has ever gone out with. I have yet to meet him, but I hear good things.
“I’m going to bring him with me,” Maxine declares, grinning. “You can just call him X, like I do. That way we don’t have to worry about any confusion.” She leans back on her bed, so that our positions are mirrored. Four and a half hours away, but just alike, as always. “You’ll like him, Kota, I know you will.”
“I don’t doubt that,” I say, my thoughts straying to my new stepbrother, Parrish. “Speaking of boys, I just met one of my new brothers.”
“Oh?” Maxine asks, her voice tightening just a little. She’s jealous of my newfound siblings; since she was five, and I came home clinging to Mom’s neck—I mean Saffron’s neck—it’s just been us. Me and Maxine. “Well, did you like him?” I snort, and my sister raises her brown brows. “I take it that’s a no?”
“My stepbrother,” I correct with a sigh. “Tess’ husband’s son. He’s a year older than me and a total asshole.” I can feel my face contorting with irritation, remembering his expression as he glanced over his shoulder and caught me checking him out.
“As if, little sister. In your dreams.”
I want to throw something.
“Whoa. So … he’s hot as fuck then?” she asks, and I choke out a caustic laugh.
“If you like rude, lazy assholes covered in tattoos and bulging with lean, stupid muscles,” I growl, and Maxine howls with laughter.
“Um, yes, please. Sign yourself up for that, Dakota. You need something to focus on, something to distract you from … well, everything. Lean, inked, and stupid is just about right.”
“He’s my brother, Maxine,” I say, but really, he’s not. First off, I just met him. Second, he’s not Tess’s bio-kid anyway. And that’s all that matters in this family, right? Biology. That’s why I’m here, isn’t it? Because I came out of Tess once upon a time. That’s the only thing connecting us anymore, just that thin strand of DNA.
I know it’s there, too, because Tess made me take three DNA tests to prove it.
“What’s his name? I wanna social media stalk him,” Maxine says, but I just roll my eyes.
“Parrish Vanguard,” I admit, and then we both pause for a minute as we minimize our video-chat windows into the corners of our phones and start stalking. She starts with Insta; I go for TikTok.
“Oh dear sweet baby Jesus,” Maxine groans as I click on a short video that Parrish posted all of ten minutes ago. “Get on his Insta, stat. This boy is fire, Dakota. You need this. You need a sexy, sordid stepbrother affair.”
I ignore her in favor of watching the TikTok video. It’s just Parrish sitting on a hideous rectangular sofa in that awful, white-washed living room.
“Just met my new stepsister, Dakota, today,” he says, shirtless and gorgeous, slouched against the cushions. One elbow rests on the arm of the couch, the other holds his phone up at an angle, emphasizing the long, lean lines of his body. “As you know, I rate every student at the academy—even the poor, lost lamb that’s just stumbled into my family.” Parrish pauses, giving a fiery smirk to the camera. “Fuckability rating …” He pauses like he’s deep in thought and then shrugs. “Three. Three and a half with the right outfit. She’s just too”—Parrish gestures at his face with a single finger—“melancholy in the face for my liking.” He licks his lower lip and smirks. “Pair that with the puke-green and emo-black hair, the thrift store sneakers, and the anime hoodie and we’ve got a Twitch-streamer wannabe on our hands.”