It never fails. We get together once a month for girl day—we paint our nails, try new makeup on, put our hair in sophisticated or just plain weird styles. Every time, I bring along a few dollars worth of stuff I pick up on sale to mix in with all her fancy department store brands. And every time whatever I bring becomes her instant favorite.
“You know, you don’t have to choose the turquoise just because I brought it,” I tell her, being extra gentle as I remove the polish from my sister’s twisted fingers. It’s so easy to break one of her bones, so easy to hurt her just by touching her the way I would touch someone else—someone healthy—that I’m always extra careful when I’m around her. I’ve spent too many hours in emergency rooms through the years, waiting for her to be x-rayed and casted from small accidents that wouldn’t even have bruised me but that have broken bones, punctured organs, caused her excruciating pain.
“I like turquoise,” she tells me with a defiant tilt of her chin. “I’ve decided it’s my new favorite color.”
“Then turquoise it shall be,” I tell her as love wells up inside of me. Lucy has had such a rough life, dealt with so much pain. And yet she manages to be so optimistic. To keep it all together even though she’s got such a raw deal. I don’t know how she does it—know that there’s no way I ever could—but I admire her for it. So, so much.
“I heard this new band the other day,” she says, reaching over and putting her iPod in its speaker with her free hand. “They’re so good. You’ve got to listen.”
Even as she says that, a really interesting melody fills the room, followed by a singer with a voice that’s half-twang and half-gravel. We listen as the words fill up the room, and it isn’t long before I’m struggling to breathe. Struggling to stop the tears from falling that I’ve—up until now—done such a good job of holding in.
But it’s hard when the words are rushing over me, words that seem to be mirroring everything that I’m feeling right now. Words like being ankle deep and the tide rushing up. Words like drowning while waiting for something, words like burning with desire, being consumed by fire. Words like reaching and beautiful and being scared.
“What—” My voice breaks and I have to start again. “What’s the name of this song?” I ask.
Lucy looks at me strangely and when she answers her voice is softer, more subdued than it ever is. “?‘Something Beautiful’ by Needtobreathe. They’ve been around for a while but I just discovered them. Do you like it?”
I clear my throat, nod. “It’s good. It’s really good.”
I duck my head, get back to painting her nails as the song continues to play around us. When it ends, I brace myself for whatever’s next. For some other love song that’s going to rip me apart just because I’m fragile. Because I’m weak.
But Lucy reaches over and switches her iPod off. She smears her nail polish as she does, but when I reach for her hand to fix it, she shakes me off. Instead, she just looks at me, eyes dark and face serious, when she asks, “Who is he?”
It’s the last thing I expect her to ask and I bobble the bottle, end up spilling turquoise polish all over her Cosmopolitan magazine. “Who’s who?” I ask while I frantically try to wipe it up with tissues.
She laughs. “If you want to pull off the whole nonchalant thing, you probably shouldn’t freak out at a simple question.” She stills my movements by picking up the magazine and ripping the back cover off before folding it in quarters so the nail polish won’t leak.
Then she grabs my hand, holds it tight. “I’ve never seen you this nervous about a guy before. Not even Carlo. So come on, spill. I want to hear all about him.”
“There’s nothing to say. We weren’t even really dating. We were just—” I pause, drawing the line at telling my sixteen-year-old sister just what Sebastian and I have spent so much of the last week doing.
“Just what? Just fuckbuddies? Or just hooking up? Or—”
“What the hell?” I demand. “Where did you even hear the term fuckbuddy?”
She rolls her eyes. “I’m sixteen, not six, you know.”
“God, I hope so. Because fuckbuddy is a term I don’t ever want to hear come out of a six-year-old’s mouth.”
“Gross!” She throws a pillow at me, further messing up her nails.
“Exactly.” I make a grab for her hand. “Now, can I fix the mess you made or are you going to keep trying to traumatize me?”
She yanks her hand back. “Oh, I’m going to keep traumatizing you. There’s no trying to about it.”
I roll my eyes at her. “You suck.”
“Sadly, I don’t. But I hope you do.” She reaches for the Cosmo, turns it over. “See. It says right here that the way to a guy’s heart isn’t through his stomach. It’s through a world-class blow job.”
“Okay, I’m done,” I tell her, climbing off the bed and starting to clean up the detritus from two hours spent playing with makeup. “I have to get to work.”
r /> “It’s your day off.”
“Yeah, well, maybe they need an extra cocktail waitress. Anything is better than—”
“What? Talking about boys with your sister? I thought that’s what sisters were supposed to do. Is it because I’m sick? You think because I’m like this I couldn’t possibly have something to say about a guy?”
“No! Of course not!” I’m horrified that she’d even think that. “It’s not that I don’t want to talk to you about guys. It’s just that the situation with Sebastian is…complicated.”