A new chance to find somewhere to belong. After all these years, I keep chasing it.
“You’ve practically been everywhere already,” Presley objects. “What’s wrong with staying here?”
“I don’t want the white picket fence and the two point three kids and the big backyard,” I lie. “That’s your dream, not mine.”
“You can stay here without settling down, you know. There’s plenty of airline work to keep you travelling, but you could have a home base here.” She frowns and reaches for a biscuit.
“Your sister is a free spirit,” Mum chimes in. “Always has been.”
I’m not,I want to scream. I just want to find the place where I’m supposed to be. For a moment I was sure that was with Vas—living by the water and eating fresh figs and learning his language. But I was wrong.
And here...here I’m shivering in the eternal shade of Presley’s perfection.
“I’m being selfish,” my sister says with a sigh. “I feel like part of me is missing when you’re away all the time. I know I’m not supposed to say that, but it’s true.”
I take a long gulp of tea, hoping it will ease the lump in my throat. It’s hard for people not to compare siblings, and it’s doubly worse for twins. I can’t blame anyone, because I do it, too.
It’s why I left in the first place.
“You know I’ll always visit,” I say.
“It’s not the same.”
My mother reaches for Presley’s arm and gives her a quick squeeze. Do I get any similar comfort from her? Nope.
You don’t need it. You’ve been looking after yourself for years. Why stop now?
“Anyway,” I say. “Enough about that. The Jack and Jill invites are going out tomorrow. I know it’s late, but thanks to the best man, we’ve had some trouble getting on the same page.”
“I’ll talk to Mike about him.”
“Don’t bother. It’s almost done now and it’s not like I’m going to be around much after the wedding to cause problems.” I’d decided not to tell Presley about the old switcheroo I pulled on the party theme because I figure the less she knows, the less chance of her fighting with her fiancé. Plausible deniability and all that. I can take the heat so Presley gets what she wants.
Story of my life.
“You don’t cause problems.” She rolls her eyes.
Maybe not. But sometimes I feel like the best thing for my relationship with my sister is for me to keep my distance—it’s a safeguard against my jealousy of her perfect life. Against my bitterness over how my mother has always preferred her. Against the fact that no matter what I do, she will always be ahead of me.
And I love my sister more than anything, so I’ll do what’s necessary to protect our relationship.
“So tell me about Greece,” Presley says. “Weren’t you with some guy?”
I’ve been dreading this ever since I came home. I’ve kept purposefully quiet about the breakup in the hopes Presley might have forgotten about that one excited email I wrote her right before it all fell apart.
“Yeah.” I stare into the depths of my tea, my reflection shifting in the milky surface. “It was a bit of fun.”
“It sounded like you really liked him.”
I steel myself. I can’t tell Perfect Presley that I got dumped because a guy couldn’t fathom committing to me—not when she got her first proposal at age four. She’d been engaged properly once in her early twenties, and though it didn’t work out, it washerdecision to end things. Not his. People don’t have problems seeing Presley as a long-term option.
“He was great.” I paste on my best Fun Time Gal smile. “For a while.”
My mother snorts. “You change boyfriends more often than you change your knickers.”
“And like knickers, frequent changing keeps me feeling fresh.” I wink at Presley and she shakes her head, laughing. “Vas was fun, but it was a fling. Nothing more.”
I never should have assumed it was anything else.