Faetality |✓|

Chapter Fifteen, Part Four - Tell Me, Does This Hurt Yet?

On my ascent up the porch steps, Margot surprised me by stepping out of the shadows. I expected her to be angry about not taking her with me to roam Harbor at two in the morning, but her face was oddly clear. She didn’t look mad, or hurt, or surprised. Just… Stoic. Painfully, guilt-inspiringly so.

            “Funny how your ride drives a black Lexus – the same car Mr. O’Sullivan drives. Lie to me and say that’s a coincidence.”

            Patiently, she waited. Shamefaced, I said nothing.

            “You warned me to stay away from him,” she calmly continued, still wearing her poker face. “You told me not to talk to him because you didn’t know if you could trust him. And now you’re driving around with him in his car at two in the morning. Is it worth it to ask you what’s going on? Or are you gonna hand feed me more bullshit.”

            I sighed and took a seat on the old wooden porch swing. Dad always warned us it was close to falling apart, but none of us ever listened. It was perfect for star-gazing. Or much-needed sister moments.

            “Margie, Dad and I – we’ve been keeping secrets from you,” I said.

            Margie sat down beside me, and drawing our mother’s old-afghan closer around her pajamas.

            “I know,” she replied, looking forward. “It’s not like I haven’t noticed. No one’s talking to each other – we’re all angry, depressed. But we don’t talk about it because… we’re not a family anymore.”

            Stung, I looked at Margie and realized she was close to tears. And I knew it was because this was how she really felt. She really believed we weren’t a family.

            “Margie, that’s not true,”

            “Yes it is!” she shot back, angrily wiping her cheeks.

            “No, it’s not,” I firmly replied. “You think Dad would be here right now if we weren’t a family? With Mom gone he doesn’t have to keep me. And he could’ve shipped you off to Grams – how many times has she offered to take you in.”

            “Yeah, well, you know I’d never leave you,” she sniffed, dabbing at her eyes with a corner of the blanket.

            “Yeah, because you know how much Grams hates me and that if you left you’d be totally bored without me,” I said with a grin, bumping her shoulder with mine. “And you know why that is?”

            Margot gave a tiny, half-hearted smile and shrugged.

            “Because we’re sisters. And sisters are family.”

            I didn’t say it aloud, but the truth was I had never been so angry with our small, broken family, but neither had I loved them more. These three people had loved and accepted me more completely than anyone else my entire life – even more than the Fae, and perhaps just as much as my mother, Tierney.