Page 35 of Solstice

“I know, X.”He kissed me again.“I fucking know.”

10

Ivy

FEBRUARY

My youngest sister, Abigail, sat at the circular desk in my office with five books out in front of her, flipping through a dusty blue one before landing on the right page, her eyes flicking down the right side before going to the left. In many ways, Abigail and I were carbon copies of each other. We had the same coloring, the same steel-gray eyes, the same set to our nose. If not for the ten-year age difference, people might have been convinced we were twins.

That only made me want to protect her from however Evelyn Washington planned to dictate her life.

“Thomas Washington University, huh?” I raised an eyebrow.

She lifted her eyes from her book and smiled. “Yeah.Exitus acta probat.”

The Washington family motto: the outcome is the test of the act. Our parents had thrown that in our faces since we were children.

“Is that what you want?”

She furrowed her eyebrows as if the question was foreign to her. It likely was. No one had ever asked me what I wanted at eighteen. There was only what was expected, only what mother told me I had to do. I carried the great burden of history on my crown, and I wore it reluctantly. Abigail shouldn’t have to do the same.

“What I want?” She shook her head. “Of course, it’s what I want. It’s all I ever wanted.”

I didn’t believe that, but I would have said the same thing eight years ago.

“What about grad school?”

She laughed, flipping the next page as she casually said, “Georgetown. Of course.”

“Do you want to be a politician?”

“Sure,” came her automated response, but hesitation flickered behind her gaze.

“Because if you don’t”—I typed at my keyboard, absently sending an email, trying to be cool about the whole thing—“that’s okay.”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

Again, I shrugged. “You don’t have to do what Mother tells you.”

She laughed. “Yeah, and spend my twenties a hermit spinster nerd like Kit? No thanks.”

“Hermit spinster nerd.” I didn’t know what she meant. I thought Kit lived a pretty wild social life, but perhaps she hid that from our younger sister. Or maybe she lied to me about it. Abigail and Kit had lived together longer than I’d lived with either of them.

“Yeah, always sneaking around, always hiding something, always on that stupid computer.” Abigail rolled her eyes and shook her head. “She hasn’t gone to graduate school or followed any of Mother’s plans. She hasn’t had a long-term relationship in years.”

Interesting.“Why do you suppose that is?”

Abigail shrugged. “She’s not like us, is she? You found the love of your life when you were a child, and I’ll marry Nathaniel Hancock like I always wanted.”

The love of my life.Was that what she thought Lex was? And why the hell did she have her sights on a preppy douche like him? The Hancocks were ostentatious and gaudy, even on their best days.

“Lex and me…” I sighed, shaking my head. She had the wrong idea about Kit. It wasn’t that she was a recluse who defied our mother just for the sake of doing so. Abigail didn’t have the whole story. “It’s not all sunshine and fluffy rainbows.”

“Of course.” She nodded. “What relationship is?”

She still didn’t understand, but I decided to shift tactics. “Are you dating Nathaniel?”

She didn’t answer, just stared at me.

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