This is not my Via.
She rounds the coffee table in small, gentle steps and goes for a hug. Stiffly, I feel her scrawny arms wrap around me. Finally, my brain tells my body to snap out of it, and I pat her back. I want to crush her with a suffocating hug, but I can’t. She’s a stranger. At least, she looks like one. I glance at Jaime and Mel who are both standing up, their arms behind their backs.
Via is back.
They brought my sister back.
Melody, of course, is the first to cry. I swear, this bitch should’ve been born into a One Tree Hill episode. The drama is always high when she’s in the room.
“Penn.” Her lower lip wobbles. God, please. Don’t let her film this shit and send it to The Ellen DeGeneres Show. “Via. You have so much to catch up on.”
I know I’m in shock when my mind goes in a different direction. Instead of, you know, wanting to catch up with my sister and find out where the hell she’s been all these years, I try to figure out why they didn’t tell me before. Why they didn’t give Daria the heads-up.
Shit, Daria.
Her juices are still on my pubes. I take a step back from my sister, who doesn’t feel like my sister anymore, and twist my head to where I left Daria. She is still there, rooted to the floor, gaping at Via in disbelief. Via meets her gaze and swallows. I’m waiting for my twin to talk so I can figure out who I’m dealing with. Because right now, she looks like a cardboard version. The blueprint before they poured personality, a soul, and character into her.
“Where in the good fuck have you been?” I curl my lips in revulsion.
Okay. Not the reaction everyone was expecting by the way Via flinched and Melody choked on her breath. But screw that. They weren’t the ones deserted.
You made me the fucking tin man, sis.
Via looks down at her untrendy tennis shoes, shined to perfection. She is twiddling her thumbs.
Who in the hell is this girl?
“With Dad…” Her voice is barely a whisper. It’s so delicate and brittle, it breaks around the last letter. “And Grandma.”
“I thought they were traveling around the country with their cult? Making the Midwest even more redneck.”
The asshole who decided at some point in my childhood that my mother wasn’t worth the trouble and we were in his way to achieving greatness. He, therefore, decided to be an itinerant preacher of some sort. Last I heard, he lived in a trailer from the eighties with my Southern grandmamma. Real fucking catch.
“They were.” She is still looking down. “Are. After I ran away, I managed to find them in Mississippi. I called and called until he picked up, then I hitchhiked there.”
“To Mississippi?”
She nods.
She is timid, shy, and doesn’t look me in the eye. My real twin sister from four years ago would eat her for breakfast.
“Why don’t we talk about it over a cup of tea?” Melody claps her hands, channeling her inner Queen Elizabeth. I don’t want tea. I want to know everything. And I want to know why Via didn’t pick up the phone to call me in four years.
“Why didn’t you call?”
“Father said I couldn’t.” Father.
“You could have written. You knew my address.”
“He said he’d throw me out if I made any attempt to reach out to you. I didn’t have anywhere else to go. I couldn’t go back to living with Rhett. I couldn’t risk you writing me back. Please, Penn.” She touches my arm, and I pull back instinctively. Bailey stands up from behind her and hugs my sister’s shoulder. My sister turns around and sinks into Bailey’s embrace. I’m so focused on what’s happening, I barely register Melody yelping Daria’s name and running after her up the stairs.
Daria bailed.
I don’t even blame her.
I would probably kill my mom if she had pulled shit like that.
Lucky for me, she’s already dead.
FUCK. TEA.
I put a hole in Mel’s perfect wall, and now I’m dragging my twin sister by the arm. I fling her into my bedroom and slam the door. She’s hysterical, shaking all over, and her eyes as wide as saucers. I don’t care. I feel too much and nothing all at the same time. Everything I turned off four years ago is back in full swing, and I’m dealing with a grave issue—believing Via was dead was heartbreaking but comforting. Knowing she was alive and ignoring my existence, however, is pure hell.
“So you lived in their trailer?” I ask, no mingling to warm up the conversation.
She nods.
“Where’d y’all sleep?”
“Father took the mini bedroom. Grandmamma and I shared a mattress in the back room.”
I see he is still a selfish asshole. At least one person in my family hasn’t changed.