But instead, I find someone else.
Someone I hadn’t noticed before. Someone who’s always been in the background.
The little sister.
Salem Salinger.
Eight years ago when my mom told me that two girls would be moving in with us, I didn’t care. I had heard of the Salingers before but never took any interest in them. I had other concerns in life, bigger concerns like soccer and my grades, along with some smaller concerns like girls.
As long as the new arrivals didn’t interfere with that, I didn’t care who moved in or not.
But then Sarah happened.
She was hot. I was horny. I was supposed to take notice of her and I did.
I was popular at school, a star athlete, a straight-A student.
Even though I never had time for friends, people followed me around and I let them instead of wasting my energy and telling them to fuck off. Sarah was supposed to be interested in me like everyone else, and she was.
I thought it would be a fling because girls usually are flings. I don’t want anyone disturbing my focus.
But turns out, Sarah was like me.
She was ambitious, focused, driven. It was like finding a perfect match.
An easy match.
It just made sense for us to be together. It made sense to date her, to make future plans with her. It made sense to convince my mother to let us be together when she found out that we had been going out behind her back for a couple of months. She had objections – namely, about my ability to handle soccer while I was also dating because my mom has always insisted that nothing at all should ever take my focus off the game – but when I won every game that year, we managed to put her mind at ease.
It also made sense to buy her a ring and propose to her.
What doesn’t make sense is that I’m standing here, at the school library, and watching her little sister get up on the ladder to retrieve a book of her own.
I’m not only watching her, I’m studying the curve of her spine and the dip of her waist. I’m studying the tight globes of her ass.
To me, she’s always been Sarah’s little sister.
A kid in the background who hated the cold but loved ice cream. I always thought that was a pretty strange combination but whatever.
I also remember Mom lecturing her about her bad grades and her breaking curfew and whatnot. Sarah would bitch about her too, from time to time.
But honestly, I didn’t care.
Nothing about Salem has ever affected me.
Not until now.
Not until I saw her at the bar with her wild hair, all loose and scattered about her shoulders, her eyes narrowed, her cheeks flushed – so flushed that it was visible in the darkened space – and her lips, parted and painted dark.
At first glance, she looked like Sarah.
Same golden eyes, same color hair, same pert nose. The same pale skin, standing there chewing me out for kissing someone else other than her sister; honestly, I don’t even think I’d heard her talk before that night.
But then, I noticed the differences.
Like the shape of her eyes. They might be the same color as Sarah’s, rare, but they arch up at the corners. They tilt up, making them look like she’s always up to something bad, something mischievous.
Also her hair. Unlike Sarah’s, her hair is curly. So much so that it bounces when she walks, independent of her body. As if it has a wild mind of its own. As do her lips. They’re poutier, much poutier. Like her mouth likes to show off, be the star of every fantasy.
And her skin.
It’s pale but it’s marked by tiny dot-like freckles. They have spread on her skin like wildfire, again with a mind of their own, on her nose and under her arched-up eyes.
Thirteen.
I saw that on the soccer field yesterday.
Thirteen freckles on her nose and seven in total under her eyes.
They moved when I humiliated her in front of everyone. They trembled when she raised her chin defiantly and turned toward the crowd in front of which I crucified her.
I know I was being a little harsh but she deserved it.
She deserved my wrath for playing the way she did. So magnificently.
So fucking gloriously.
How did I not know this about her?
She lived with my family. She lived in my fucking house for years and I never knew this. I never knew that she shines brighter than any star that I’ve seen on the soccer field.
It was such a shock.
Such a… betrayal somehow, that I was never made aware of this. That’s why I couldn’t stop looking at her, watching her pumping her little legs up and down the field. That’s why I couldn’t look at anyone else.
She forced me, didn’t she?
She forced me to look at her. She blindsided me, distracted me from other players and made me sloppy at my job.