Page 48 of Change My Mind
Thirty-One
ELI
When I got home, the adrenaline of the day was starting to wear off. The flat was almost pitch black, the only light coming from the glare of the TV. The quiet din of it told me a reality dating show was on. I didn’t know which one, but I knew it wasn’t the one we had been watching. I shut the front door and toed off my shoes before I walked slowly into the living room.
Addie was lying on the sofa. I could tell that her eyes were red-rimmed and puffy from where I was standing.
“Are you okay?” I asked. My voice was barely above a whisper, but it sounded like a shout in the dark room.
“I made a paella,” Addie said instead of answering my question. She didn’t even look at me.
I looked through the doorway to the kitchen and saw the biggest pan we owned covered and on the counter. “You did what?”
“I made a pae?—”
I cut her off. “Yeah, no, I heard you. I just had a hard time for a second trying to figure out how you had the energy to make a paella after that lunch shift.” I came to a stop behind the sofa, looking down at her.
She finally looked at me, a short bark of a laugh roughly escaping her. “It was less to do with energy and more to do with the fact that I needed a distraction. And paella is temperamental enough to require a great level of concentration.”
“Why did you need the distraction?”
She took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “Clara is engaged.”
It was a statement. One almost completely devoid of any emotion.
“Why do you look like this is the worst possible news you could hear?”
“Because I’m sad,” she said simply, casting her eyes away from me and staring blankly at the TV.
“Why are you sad? Are you secretly in love with your sister’s fiancé or something?” Another dry husk of a laugh as she held her phone up to me. It took it and saw a photo of Clara and Jesse.
They looked happy. The light in Clara’s eyes was brighter than ever. Jesse’s cheeks were flushed. Their smiles were wide. I felt a sense of peace looking at the photo. The love between them was palpable. Even through a screen.
“They seem happy,” I said, trying to keep my tone neutral. I still didn’t quite know what had caused this reaction in Addie. I tried to hand her phone back, but she pushed it away.
“Look at the picture properly,” she snapped.
I zoomed in and finally saw the culprit of Addie’s current mood.
“The twins are there?” I asked.
“And Rachel,” she bit out and snatched her phone from me.
“Well, surely there’s a story there?” I asked timidly.
“The story is, Eli, that I am still on the outside of myownfamily despite being twenty fucking minutes away from them now.” She dropped her phone and threw an arm over her face. I heard her sniffle.
I walked around the sofa, lifted her legs and sat down, settling them back down on my lap. Unsurprisingly, she was in her usual flat attire of shorts and an oversized T-shirt. This one had an ode toTreasure Planet. Her skin felt cool under my touch. I pulled the blanket off the back of the sofa and draped it over her lower half, my hand resting on her bare calf.
“I think you might need to start at the beginning,” I said gently, my thumb rubbing circles on her leg.
“It’s stupid,” she grumbled.
“Tell me anyway,” I encouraged, sweeping my thumb up her calf once more.
She finally dropped her arm away from her face and took a deep breath as she wiped under her eyes.
“I couldn’t be here anymore. Back then. When we were young and fresh and had just finished secondary school and everyone kept telling us to get ready for the rest of our lives. I couldn’t behereanymore. I didn’t think it was possible because two of them literally left London, but I watched those four weave their web together even tighter when they went off to uni, and they didn’t mean to, but they left me behind. They could drink, and they were going out, and they didn’t have a curfew, and they were doing the whole living thing. It was the first time I had ever truly been aware that they were older than me. And I hated it, so I started wishing time away. I figured that once I was out of secondary school and could do all the things they were doing, we would be on an even playing field again.
