Page 37 of For Pleasure Or Worse

"That is called a toxic relationship," I pointed out. "Just because it’s how we grew up doesn't mean we need to continue it as adults. I'd much rather forget the entire portion of my childhood where Dad apologized by buying me a new Chia Pet every time he missed a school concert, or ran over my bike backing the car into the garage. I had, like, seventy-two Chia Pets."

"You did have a lot of Chia Pets." Bella pushed her tortoiseshell reading glasses into her hair like a headband. It was both stylish and effortless.

"I don't want your pity eclair, Bells. I want to have a normal relationship with my sisters. Plural. Because the parent ship has sailed."

"That's not true." She tilted her head ruefully. "Mom is just as fucked up as we are. Think about the generation before her that put all those ideas in her head in the first place. It's not us, it's men. I work in a field absolutely dominated by the most narcissistic assholes on this planet, so I can vouch."

Even so, my mother was a brilliant woman. There was nothing she couldn’t do if she wanted it badly enough; she was an extremely career-focused and calculated entrepreneur. Sheknewright from wrong. It was her inability to admit her wrongs that infuriated me. She was too vain to protect us from the things kids should never have to endure growing up. Her own misaligned, volatile parenting included. My parents loved each other in a checks and balances kind of way. My dad providedthe check, and my mom balanced the duties of motherhood by pushing them off onto a nanny for twelve years.

"If she stood up for me, maybe just one time, I could have sympathy. At this point in my life I don't feel responsible for another grown woman's feelings being hurt. I love her, but she is a witchy woman."

"She’s terrible at articulating herself, and you're the baby of the family, so you always take things way too personally. Fact of the matter is that we don't want you making any rash decisions, just as much as you don’t want any pushback. We do care, Talia. You’re not Donnie Darko."

"God, just get me the eclair," I grumbled. "I’ll be rehashing this conversation in my nightmares later."

Isabella reached over the table, in one of the most foreign gestures I'd ever seen, and closed her hand over mine.

We did not touch. We barely hugged. I could count on one hand the number of times I'd ever embraced any of my sisters just for the heck of it, and the last was my grandfather’s funeral five years ago.

"What are you doing?" I asked, closing my fingers into a pinched little claw. "Did someone die? Is that why you asked me to come here?"

Bella's eyes rolled and she returned her hand to her side of the table. "Didn't you just go on this whole rant about healthy relationships and undoing familial trauma? You can't even hold my hand."

"Well, that's because it’s weird," I volleyed. "We look like lesbians. You look like a lesbian in that outfit, and I look like your sad, alt younger girlfriend who calls you Mommy."

"Oh, for fuck’s sake." Bella reached into her pocket, leaning back on her chair and pulling out a tube of Chapstick to apply.

"Baby steps," I suggested. "You know what would really prove to me that you, Mia, and Cami actually care? AnsweringOphelia's text messages about Vegas. She is way too nice and non-confrontational. You can walk all over me but my best friend is where I draw the line."

Bella sucked in a breath that blew up her cheeks and then let it out dramatically. "Fine. We will comply with Ophelia and her Excel spreadsheet.”

"Thank you." Finally, getting somewhere. A tiny weight lifted off my shoulders and took flight into the metal rafters above us.

"But does she really need our underwear sizes?"

That question did not even faze me. It registered in a very neutral area of my brain as just a matter of fact, because I wouldn’t have expected anything less. Phee and her crafty ideas never ceased to amaze me. If I'd done everything else in life wrong, at least I got Ophelia right. She was my invisible string.

"What's the worst that could happen?” I shrugged. “You get a brand-new pair of underwear?"

"Right,” Bella conceded. “So the world keeps spinning, and we will work on communication and answer Ophelia's texts. And emails, and invitation to the Google calendar, and the collaboration on the Pinterest board. Now can I actually do my job, as your sister and lawyer?"

I sat back in my chair, crossing a leg over my knee. "Was I arrested for something I don't know about?"

Bella leaned down to her bag on the floor and plucked a thin binder out of it, settling it on the table between us. It resembled a menu you’d get at a swanky restaurant, stocky paper with tiny bindings and even tinier letters when she flipped it open.

"Don't ever tell me I don't love you," she said. "Consider this a wedding present, because I'm doing it pro bono."

My eyebrows knitted together as I pulled the binder closer and stared down at the professionally formatted legal paperwork. Isabella had tabbed important clauses and highlighted keywords in the text, but the only thing that stuckout to me was the bold and underlined words at the top of the page. PRENUPTIAL AGREEMENT.

She couldn't have been serious. A slew of colorful words rose to the top of my throat with what stung like bile and it took everything in me not to swipe the book off the table like a miscreant cat.

"Uh, thanks." I slid it back in her direction. "But no thanks."

The milk steamer across the room hissed as the barista worked a metal cup underneath it and I buried my attention in the people moving around the cafe. If I didn't look at it, it would simply cease to exist. My sister reared the binder back in my direction like a petulant child.

"What do you mean,no thanks?"

My deep brown eyes met her more hazel ones. "I mean, we aren't doing a prenup. I don't need it."

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