Chapter 6 - For Once, I Decide
"So what happens now?" she asked.
"For once," I said, "I decide."
She waited.
"We start small. You don't disappear. You don't get to decide what I can and can't handle. And you don't make me chase you down for answers."
"Okay."
"Mom and Dad need time too. They're going to be angry, probably for a long while, and I'm not going to explain you to them."
"That's fair."
"I'm not trying to be fair. I'm trying to figure out how to have a living sister after ten years of believing I didn't."
"So what do you want from me?"
"For now?" I picked up my bag. "Lunch. Thursday."
Three weeks later, I stopped at a bakery on my way to meet her.
The girl behind the counter reached for a bag. "Two blueberry scones?"
For ten years I'd bought everything in twos without thinking about it. Two mugs. Two pastries. Two of anything that felt unfinished on its own.
I looked through the glass case.
"No. One blueberry." Then I pointed at the chocolate croissant Vivian had ordered when we'd had lunch the week before. "And one of those."
The cashier bagged them separately.
That felt right.
Vivian and I were not going back to the place we'd left off. There was no old version of us sitting in storage, waiting to be switched back on. She had spent ten years turning into someone I didn't know. I had spent ten years turning into someone who lived without her.
May you like
Now, for the first time, neither of us had to disappear so the other one could exist.
I picked up the two different bags and went to meet my sister.
