Slate | ✓

EIGHT | WILL

Athena's eyes are bloodshot from all the vomiting, which creates an angry smear of colour around the grey of her iris, like somebody's attacked her with a splotch of red paint.

My mind is slow to grasp the abruptness of the past few minutes. I'd been trying to realign myself with a solitary smoke, away from the noise and flair that seemed suddenly suffocating the second Damien left my side. Faces that I hadn't given a single thought to in months were reanimated, laughing and touching and slurring, with all their expectations and questions. Where have you been? I heard you and Ella broke up. Your sister is so much fun! They all seemed different from what they were when I'd left them last June. Confronted by it now, I hadn't realized I'd subconsciously expected them to remain at a kind of pause until I was ready to press play again. Names eluded me, the guilt of missing out blossomed in my chest, intensified only by the disappointment suspended on Ella's face upon catching sight of me.

It made me want to shrink away. She's always been able to read me better than anyone, and what she sees must be unrecognizable. The fact that she seemed so far away makes me feel more sick than the sight of the vomit pooling at my feet.

When Athena had run out of the house, emptying her stomach content into a nearby flowerbed, she had nearly barrelled into me. Now, I hold my sister's hair out of her face, gently rubbing circles into her back as she keels over for the third time. At this point, all that's left is stomach acid. The flowers are ruined.

When she's done, I release my grip on her as she straightens up, back leaning against the side paneling of the wall for support. Her gaze bores into me, as if I'm withholding something from her, and I'm struck with the genuine fear that she's about to start crying. My mouth opens, then closes. "Are you okay?"

It's a startlingly dumb question, even for me.

"Peachy," Athena grumbles, smelling her own breath and recoiling. Her voice is hoarse and bitter. She glares up at me, reproachful, as if we're not standing over a puddle of her own vomit.

"Athena, what the fuck?" Some words come easier than others.

Her makeup isn't perfect anymore, dark rings smudge around her eyes and the red lipstick is no longer contained to her lips. Athena smiles at me, mouth sourly twisting. "Well, at least I feel a lot better now."

"Great," I lean against the wall beside her.

"Want to hear a funny story?" The alcohol burns through her expression as her stare fixates on the flowers at our feet, decorated by rancid chunks.

"No."

"One time, when I was a kid, Charlie came home from school and vomited all over my favourite pair of shoes. They were pink and they had cartoon characters all over them, and whenever I stomped around, they would start flashing with all of these colours." Her eyes never stray from the flowers, gaze a strange combination of brutal and wistful."Mom made him buy me a new pair, but I never wore them, never even took them out of the box."

"Why not?"

Athena shrugs, "because they weren't my shoes anymore." She looks up at me. "He was probably fucked up or something?"

"Probably."

"Mom said it was the flu."

"Mom would say a lot of things." I don't know why she's talking about this.

Athena turns on me with the same level of attention and scrutiny she had given the flowers, and I'm immediately suspicious and unnerved. "Why weren't you inside?" She interrogates.

I grow defensive before I even have the chance to understand why, even though, for once, she's the mess. Appearances have always mattered to my sister, and I'm already expecting some sort of mind game. Her fake composure reminds me of a warped version of when we were kids and I'd feel guilty for something she'd done, as if we were two sides of the same person. The way things seem so much easier for her is enough for me to recognize any deficiencies in myself.