The Broken Sister (Sister #6) (15 page)

“I don’t think that’s going to happen,” he said after they finally stopped kissing.

She shrugged as something, doubt or uncertainty, flashed in her eyes. “We should go sled. There’s a great hill right over there.”

He rolled off her and laid there in the soft snow for a long moment as she jumped up, snow falling off her. He stared up at the blue sky. Cold air filled his brain, dousing the fire of desire, and worse, the interest he had in the girl he was playing in the snow with.

True to her word, they sledded. For hours. It was fun. Up and down the hill they went. Together, apart. On their stomachs. On their knees. On their butts. Spinning backwards and forwards. Trying to hit the jump he made. Trying to outdo each other.

When they got cold she suggested they leave and stop for hot chocolate at the first café they came to in a small, remote town at the base of the mountains. And there he sat, drinking hot chocolate with whipped cream with the girl he was supposed to be ruining. When they leaned towards each other, intimately talking, sipping the chocolatey fragrant drinks, he had a weird thought flash through him of what an amazing day it had been. Fun. Greatly fun. It just didn’t make sense who it was with.

They ended up back at her parents’ house. After unloading the sleds and throwing their snow gear in his car he followed her back into the family’s house.

“Ally!” Kylie exclaimed when a tall, auburn-haired girl stood up from the couch when they barged through the front door. “I didn’t know you were coming.”

“Heard there was someone to meet,” Ally said with a smile towards him as the sisters embraced. Kylie had thrown her arms around her and then stepped back and to the side. “Tristan, this is my sister, Ally.”

He stepped forward, surprised when she put her hand out to meet him. Not all college students did that. She had a firm grasp and met his gaze head-on, squarely. She straightened her shoulders back and flashed him a guarded smile. “Tristan.” Her tone was prim, formal, and he swore that one word was some kind of command towards him.

They were strikingly different and he didn’t even really know either of them. Ally was the center of the room, her confidence wafting off her. She was extraordinarily beautiful with strong features, dark brown eyes, and thick mahogany-colored hair that undulated around her shoulders and down her back. 

Kylie was a waif next to her. Slight, delicate, skinny, all described her. Her hair was tucked back in her severe ponytail but the snow hat had messed it up and stray strands stuck up off her scalp in static electricity.

It was the stray strands that stuck straight up as she smiled with joy at her sister’s presence that had his heart twisting around weirdly. There was something about her carelessness about her appearance that made everything she did that much sweeter.

She was right. Ally was the complete opposite of Kylie. Anyone seeing them would assume he was there with Ally. They had the same preppy, neat appearance. They were both confident in their carriage and demeanor.

But it was Kylie who his eyes stayed glued on. It was Kylie he watched as she smiled and tried to cover up her unease by crossing her arms over her stomach while she looked down, listening as Ally asked him rote questions that he answered without listening. Something bumped near his heart as he watched Kylie. There was some trait of vulnerability around her that made him want to step forward, grab her in his arms, and hold her close to his chest. It was a protective urge he’d never once experienced with any kind of woman before. Why her? He didn’t really know. There was something unsure, insecure, and weak about her. There was this urge to tell her that contrary to what she thought, she was far more interesting, intriguing, and mysterious than her rather ordinary, good-girl perfect sister.

Yet he felt strong feelings for her. She wasn’t the strong, confident and therefore what society would deem an attractive kind of girl. She was unsure and seemed to give in to behavior that made her fit in. She seemed to not flourish in school or anywhere but her art. She was insecure and obviously looked to Ally as the ideal of perfection she should be. And an ideal he should want. He totally got and agreed with that.

The thing was there was something about her. A kindness he witnessed lurking just beneath the surface of all her behavior. A vulnerability that covered a heartbreaking need to be accepted and loved. Yet, even when she had it—Tristan was sure she had from her mom and sister—she didn’t seem to see it or totally believe in it. She seemed angry with herself for not accepting the family she obviously loved as enough. She thought she wasn’t enough. It came through in every way she presented herself and her sister and even her mom. She was convinced she would hurt or shame them with every single thing about her, with her looks, her work ethic, her hobbies, her attitude, her behavior, even her sex life. All of it was to be hidden and ashamed of. She didn’t even grieve “right” when the dad died, it sounded like.

But the weak girl who looked like a wind would push her over tromped around at night at her college, in her neighborhood and in all of downtown Marsdale and didn’t even get why anyone worried about it as she helped segments of the population that most others either disdained or were afraid of. She was the most decent to those who needed it the most and who other people were usually the worst behaved towards. She was morally superior to him in her ability to not judge others and to accept them exactly as they were and not use it as a basis to decide who was worthy of help.

She was, in a word, a total juxtaposition of confidence and insecurity.

He sat down to their table, a six-seat oak table. The dinner was meatloaf, a green salad and potatoes in some kind of cheese sauce. It was unpretentious. It was, he suspected, what most average family dinners were like. His own family was ridiculous with their airs and formal dinners. There was not much occasion for family dinners, thank God. His family didn’t much hang out together other than for business. He had impeccable manners, of course, from years spent under his grandfather’s demanding tutelage. He passed the food around, ate neatly, never spilled, and handled the questions that were thrown at him with smiles and ease. Even Ally. She was pretty hell-bent on grilling him. He almost asked her if she’d like to see his stock portfolio.

She was going to be a pain in the ass and annoying, he realized. She might be what derailed this entire thing. No doubt one quick investigation into him and she’d figure out he wasn’t who he said. Then it would be done. Over.

The realization made him glance sharply at Kylie as she sat beside him, mostly quiet, and pushing her food about the plate. Tracy noticed. Her mouth kept puckering up but she remained quiet on the matter. He felt compelled to reach out and touch Kylie’s knee with a quick, soft squeeze. She peeked up at him without turning her head, obviously startled by the discreet touch. She smiled softly, blushed and glanced down to grapple for her water glass and drink.

They stayed for another hour. It was a pleasant evening, Tristan admitted, even if he was predisposed to hate it. He didn’t really like families. Nothing about family ever called him to willingly hang out with them. But maybe if his mother was as kind and interested as Tracy was towards her daughters, maybe he’d get the urge to interact with family. Donny still was pretty quiet towards him. He didn’t seem to have much to say.

There was an odd moment when someone named “Micah” was mentioned and the entire table seemed to fall deathly silent. He had glanced at Kylie but her face was downturned and she was staring hard at her plate, her hands falling into her lap below the tablecloth where she was kneading them back and forth together. He wondered who Micah was.

They left together, Donny sending him glares of warning. Tristan almost put his hands up to proclaim he hadn’t done anything more than kiss Kylie. But he just shook the hand put towards him and finally escaped the normal happy family he just didn’t expect from the girl he was coming after.

In the car, he gripped the steering wheel tight in his hands. His knuckles turned white. No way was she just some girl who made false accusations. He knew that. No matter what, Kylie wasn’t evil or vicious. He glanced at her from the corner of his eyes as she sat quietly in his passenger seat, her head turned towards the passing scenery. The shadows played peek-a-boo with the circles the streetlights cast. It moved in a motif of shadows over her profile.

And he had no idea what she was thinking or feeling, and stranger still, it bothered him that he didn’t know. He wanted to know what she thought of today, of them, of him with her parents and sister. What the hell? He wanted their approval? The urge left him squirming in his seat and focusing harder on the road before him. Absurd. He was planning to hurt this girl, why the hell would he care what she thought or felt or about her family?

Still, he reached over and set his hand on her shoulder, squeezing, before he withdrew it to drive. “Anything on your mind?”

She glanced at him a smile just barely touching her lips. “You’re very good with introductions.”

He smiled as he kept his gaze forward. “Have to be. Requirement of being my parents’ son, and now my job. The work I do requires me to do a lot of salesmanship. You know, image and small talk and all that bullshit.”

“I’m not good at any of that. Too shy. Even Ally liked you. She’s hard to please, but mostly because you showed up with me, that automatically makes her predisposed to think you’re some smarmy loser who’s out to use me or get me hooked on drugs or case the joint to rob it.”

He shook his head. “That description of what she expects out of you is all kinds of fucked up. I don’t know where to start. First, what is it you think she thought of me?”

“She said you seemed, and I quote, ‘Pretty together and not a total asshole.’”

“Well, glad I come across that well. And your parents?”

“I’m sure they were secretly wanting to do cartwheels because you didn’t seem like you had track marks up and down your arms.”

“Your tastes are really that bad?”

“More like that indiscriminate.” She dropped her face down. Something fluttered in his chest when he glanced over, catching a glimpse of her profile. There was something about her that seemed to make her grow more and more beautiful in this haunting, fragile, breakable way. A way that motivated him to want to un-break her and see her smile. “But they don’t really know that. Only Ally knows that. I never brought anyone home. I’m not sure what they think, but I’ve worked really hard to make sure they don’t think the truth.”

He let her statement fall in his car with silence. Then he said, his tone neutral, “The truth being you’re a slut?”

“The truth being that’s what they’d think. They would think I’m dirty and gross—”

“I don’t think that.” He interrupted her, his tone soft, at odds with the impassioned tone of hers. Her conviction. Her truth. She was dirty and gross and a slut. How much did that play into who she was? What she did with herself? How many of her problems stemmed from that? And what led her down that belief in the first place? The family he just met was not what he had pictured. They seemed loving, warm, and real. Maybe it was an act, but Tristan didn’t think so. He usually got a gut-level feeling on people. Like he had on Kylie right off… And now her damn family.

“You’re in the minority,” she answered finally, her voice almost a whisper. Breathless. Her jaw locked.

“I don’t have to be.”

“I know I should have stopped how I act… actually, how I am, a long time ago. I can’t describe it really.”

“Try to. How are you like?”

She licked her lips as she glanced at him, her eyebrows drawn in puzzlement. “I’m the girl who had sex indiscriminately.”

“So did I. In college. I totally did that.”

“Every weekend?” Her tone gathered strength.

“Damn near.”

“Well then, we would have hooked up somewhere on some dirty bed or floor and I wouldn’t remember much of it. I’d stumble home after, clean up, and get up to do it all over again.” Her tone was gathering steam as she spoke.

“Yup, me too, Kylie,” he shot back immediately.

She cut him with a glare. “I was raised by a nice family to be a good person. Get good grades. Try my hardest. I was loved and cared for. Yet, I just wasn’t happy. In high school I was just sad so much. And shy. So socially awkward. Still am.”

“You were not socially awkward when I met you at The Acorn. You served me with complete competence, politeness, and skill. Being quiet doesn’t make you socially awkward. Maybe it just makes you not annoying.”

“I’m comfortable there. I know my job. My roll. My place and how to function. Left in a group with peers my own age? I’m hopeless. I often tagged along with my sister. So popular, pretty, perky, and—”

“Perfect,” he supplied. “Yes, I’ve gathered she’s the ideal you’ve pitted yourself against. Measured up against and always found coming up short… but let me ask you this; did anyone else make the comparison? Because I didn’t get from your mother that she wanted you to be Ally.”

“No, she doesn’t. I do. You’re missing the point. My mom deserves for me to be like her. To just be… better than I am.”

“Okay, I disagree. But continue. You are socially awkward and lacking in every way Ally is not. So in high school what did this propel you to do?”

She shot him an annoyed frown. He could see her agitation growing as he summarized what she was saying. “I drank when we were out with friends.”