It All Started with a Lie

Chapter 21

My sister squeals, tossing her arms around me and I have to keep her from falling off the bed and knocking her foot. Sonny sniffles and tries his best to smile. He doesn't even let me fix his makeup before grabbing a pencil. It takes him a couple tries to get the pencil close enough to my eye to mark it without me pulling away or blinking. It feels like some odd form of torture. Sonny sighs, while I grind my teeth and hope he doesn't poke my eye out. "No one will ever love me," he says while he lines my waterline.

Someone will, how could they not. He is Sonny, a ray of sunshine, so damn driven and talented that the whole world is going to know his name one day. But I can't tell him this right now.

Bea and I know how to reply, our biggest insecurities, hanging in the air with no judgment and no commentary. Just telling each other, to lift the burden for a moment. Bea goes next. "Ryder won't want to do long distance anymore."

He will. He looks at her like she is everything to him. But I can't tell her this, not in this moment because this is a safe moment, where no reassurance is asked.

I go next. "I'm not strong enough." I couldn't protect them. Not from the fire, not from our father. I couldn't protect them.

No one answers, and it is exactly as it should be. I can say what I feel and not have to worry about being forced to open up, or being judged, or even have the fear of it being brought up in the future.

Sonny finishes with the eyeliner and sets the pencil on the ground, picking up a mirror. I push it away as he tries to show me. "I don't want to see it."

My brother respects my request and raves about how good it looks. My sister joins him, telling me that it really brings out the blue in my eyes and I know they mean well; they're just trying to reassure me, but it makes me feel sick. It takes everything in me not to hide my face from them and instead look them in the eyes.

I make it five minutes before I feel like I can't breathe and if I stand here any longer I might gouge my own eyes out. I get up to wash it off and no one complains when I do but Sonny demands I change out of his new design before washing it off so I don't risk staining it. While I do, he helps Bea change and make it downstairs to take pictures in her new outfit.

It takes me longer than I'd like to admit to get out of the outfit without wrinkling it or tearing a button. Sonny insists that I hang it despite needing to put it back on in a few minutes. When I am done, I breathe a sigh of relief, desperate to get the ink off my face. I can feel it seeping into my eyes and I am convinced it is getting in my bloodstream because my chest tightens, drawing out my breath and the rooms sways with every move I make. By the time I make it to the bathroom I have to brace myself against the bathroom sink to keep standing.

If my father saw me right now he would beat me for wearing such a thing.

I cover the mirror with a towel before I can see myself and scrub my face down with hand soap. I wash it twice, and don't even care when soap seeps into my eyes.

As I am drying off my face, there is a knock on the bathroom door frame. Alexandria stands in the doorway. "Where's Bea?" It is my first question because the answer determines what I will say next.

"Her and Sonny are downstairs setting up a makeshift runway. They sent me up to get the dress, figured I'd grab my keys from you while I'm up here."

I nod and let her know they are in Sonny's room. I slide past her in the doorway, guiding her with a hand at her waist. It is the most I can do with my sister downstairs.

When I return with her keys she is sitting on the bathroom counter, poking around our medicine cabinet, reading the labels on random bottles. I laugh, drawing her attention, and hand her the keys. The woman certainly does not know the definition of personal space, it is probably why my sister loves her so much.

She kicks the door closed with her foot and pulls me in by the end of my t-shirt, before kissing me. I can't help but kiss her back, pull her as close I can get her, but while I do, I mumble against her lips, "my sister could see us. Or Sonny."

She breaks away, peppering one, or maybe three, last kisses to my jaw. "I know, I just couldn't help myself."

Our noses brush as I grin. "Yeah, I know the feeling." How the hell am I supposed to spend the entire day with her and my family?

She laughs, and I feign a groan as she pushes me away to leave. Before I do she smiles and says, "I like the eyeliner by the way. It looks good on you."

The blood drains my face and my skin grows pale. I turn to the sink so fast my vision fades into stars for a brief moment. My hand trembles as I turn on the faucet and drench my eyes in water. I curse, muttering under my breath. "I thought I got it off."

I scrub my water line with soap, ignoring the burning. "What are you doing?" She scolds, slapping my hands away from the water.

I back away from the sink but turn my face away from her, closing my eyes and hope she can't see it anymore. "Take a deep breath." She presses her palm to my chest.

I hadn't even realized I was gasping.

I do as she says, following her breaths. Inhala. Exhala. There's something comforting about the warmth of her body against mine and slowly I stop trembling. When I calm down, she reaches into her bra  and pulls out a miniature pack of wipes. How much stuff does she keep in there? I swear everytime I take it off, three or four things fall to the floor. "It's waterproof eyeliner. You're not going to get it off with hand soap."

She pushes me back and sets me on the toilet, before grabbing a wipe from the pack. She takes her time wiping it off, making sure to get every spec off and not leave a trace. I can't look her in the eyes while she does "All better." She tosses the wipe in the trash can. "And don't worry, I didn't see a thing if you didn't want me to."

I let out a restrained breath and close my eyes, nodding. I am too distressed to thank her.

"I better go try on that dress before they start to wonder what is taking me so long. I'll see you down there."

She maneuvers the pack of wipes back under her breasts and they magically disappear, blending into the material of her top. I am baffled and she has to physically close my jaw before she laughs. "What? If I have to be cursed with boobs so large they make my back ache, I'm going to make them useful." She adjusts her breast one more time before leaving me to change into her dress.

I beat her downstairs after changing back into the suit and lie to my family that I haven't seen her yet, that she must have come up while I was changing. They have made a runway out of an old curtain and Sonny sets the Polaroid camera on a tripod. We wait to start the show till Alexandria joins us. I hear her footsteps on the stairs first and am sure to avert my eyes. My emotions have always been written in my face and I know exactly what they will show if I see her in that dress. So when she makes her entrance down the stairs, in a dress that I know fits her perfectly, I stare at the wall behind her and feign indifference. My sister whistles, screaming how good she looks and my brother's smile grows proud.

We throw a fashion show, and Sonny takes a million photos, and when he gets sad again, Alexandria makes us dance to pop songs, a breakup essential as she puts it.

When we've grown tired of that we watch Sonny's favorite musicals and Alexandria and Bea sing terribly too their hearts content, so loudly our neighbors are probably covering their ears, and it is beautiful and I can't help but stare and realize just how long of day this really will be because how am I to pretend that I do not know her, that my tongue has not grazed every inch of her skin, that I do know the sound of her laughter better than I know my own, that I have not memorized every freckle on her body.

How am I supposed to pretend she is nothing to me when she is everything?

A/N
Hi lovies!

I am writing the last chapter of book as this chapter is released. I can't believe it is almost finished. There will be about 29 chapters.

What did we think of the chapter?

QOTD: what is a strange topic that you know an unusual amount about?

Mine is the story behind the Jaws ride at Universal studios. I watched a ton of YouTube videos about it.

Lots of love,
Rachelle <3