Page 22 of Chaos

“Charlotte.”

I halt, my gut flip-flopping like a damn fish. Another voice repeats my name, someone else saying it like a question, and I hear anohand anahand awhat the fuck?

Ignoring the tangible curiosity thickening the air, I slowly around.

“Huh.” My head drops to one side. My hands find my hips, thumbs hooking through my belt loops, fingertips drumming against the buckle that’s been digging into my gut all day. “Youdoknow who I am.”

Her stance not all that different, Lux sighs.

“Out of sight, out of mind is kind of a big thing for you, huh?”

Eyes flitting to her gaping staff behind me, my sister runs her tongue over her teeth. “That’s enough.”

“Right.” I snap my fingers and laugh, nothing joyous about it. “You didn’t want them to know. My bad,boss.”

Lux twitches at the accusation. And then she closes the distance between us, fingers locking around my bicep in a touchthat only lingers long enough for her to drag me a couple steps closer to the house before I shake her off. “We can talk inside.”

“I’m working.”

“Your boss will forgive five minutes.”

“I don’t know. She can be a real bitch sometimes.”

Lux flinches, and fuck if I don’t make myself flinch a little too. “I know you’re upset with me for not picking you up yesterday, but—”

“I’m not upset,” I snap, my tone so fucking contradictory to what I claim. “I am shockingly unsurprised. In fact, I’m amazed you even remembered to send someone to get me. Did you pay Finn the big bucks for taking on such a horrendous task?”

“Hey,” the man in question barks, and I swing on him, ready to bark right back, tobite, only to realize he’s not barking at all. He’s calling out, trying to catch Lux’s attention, and when he gets it, he asks, “Alex feeling any better?”

My gaze flies back to my sister just in time to catch a tired smile. “A little.”

Now I, Idefinitelybark. “What’s wrong with Alex?”

Wary eyes assess me, like Lux has no idea what information is safe to offer me, like discussing her son with me is the last thing she wants to do. “He’s sick.”

Something lodges in in my throat. “How sick?”

“Strep.”

I wince. “But he’s okay?”

“He’s fine.”

“That’s good,” Finn chimes in again, sounding closer than before—heiscloser than before, leaning against the porch railing right beside me and Lux, hovering over us like a fucking umpire. He might be looking to my sister, but I swear he’s talking to me as he says, “He was pretty bad yesterday.”

Just like that, my anger fizzles out. Not only does the wind beneath my fucking wings die, but said wings get chopped off too, plummeting me into a mucky pit of guilt.

She didn’t pick me up because Alex was sick. Her son was sick enough that she didn’t want to leave him, and I’m giving her a hard time. I called her a bitch.

Fuck, Lottie. Why are you like this?

Why can’t I stop being like this, why do I have to lift my chin in an automatic, unnecessary display of defiance and maintain a blank expression lest I dare to show an emotion that doesn’t stem from anger?

I know the answer. My sister knows the answer.Them, I should say. Theanswers, plural.

I know, but I pretend I don’t. I pretend that I cling to my anger because I want to, not because I have to, because it’s a coping mechanism so deeply ingrained within me, I don’t know how to cut it out. Just like I pretend I haven’t done anything,anotherthing, wrong.

“Okay,” I say to my sister, lifting the hand not crushing a long-forgotten sandwich like I crush the concept of an apology in a farewell salute. “Then I guess we have nothing to talk about.”

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