After finding my shoes, I stood and carried them to the door. I scooted around Rebecca and walked to the bathroom to finish getting ready.
“Kat, did you hear me?”
“Yeah, I heard you.”
She let out a strangled scream, and I bit back a smile. It was so easy to piss her off.
“Don’t you care?”
“No,” I said, combing my long hair back into a ponytail.
“You annoy the shit out of me sometimes,” she said.
“Why? Because I won’t follow their rules and bend to their ways? I don’t see you getting hounded.”
She threw up her arms. “I’m not the one who’s defied them all these years.”
I laughed, and she screamed.
“Why can’t you just be civil with them?”
I poked my head out of the bathroom and glared at her. “Civil? When have they ever been civil to me?”
“Maybe if you were nicer and stopped fighting them on everything, you’d have a better relationship.”
“That won’t matter. They hate me. It’s not the same for you. They don’t force men on you to date or take to charity events. They didn’t yank your school fund away at the first C. They’ve approved all of your choices, even when it wasn’t what they wanted.” I wiped a tear from my eye and took a deep breath before applying my eyeliner.
“Have you ever tried to talk to them?” she asked from beside me. Her voice was soft and caring.
“I have. Mom told me to stop being so flaky and move home. Dad told me to get my head out of my ass and pick a career path. They don’t give a shit about what I want. They want to marry me off to save their status with the rich and ridiculous. Who cares if I marry an asshole who won’t love me and will cheat on me our entire marriage as long as he has the right last name?” I pushed past her and headed for the door.
“It’s not like that, Kat, and you know it.”
I whirled around and pointed my finger in her face. “That’s exactly what it’s like. You choose not to believe it. They’ve treated you different your entire life, baby sister, and that has made you blind.”
“Screw you, Katerina. I thought we were making progress, but I guess I was wrong. You’re the same old Kat.”
I gritted my teeth and turned around, tugging on my black tennis shoes. I was not the same old Kat. The old me would have run off to the bar and gotten drunk, hit on some guy who was alone, and taken him home so I could screw his brains out and forget how shitty my life was. The old me would have walked away from this town and everyone in it, not caring who I screwed over.
“Lock up when you leave.”
“Kat, wait,” Rebecca said as I reached for the door handle. At this rate, I would be late to work.
“What?”
“I don’t want to leave things like this. We’ve been doing so well.”
“I agree, but when you side with Mom and Dad and push me to talk to them, it hurts. I’ll never be what they want, and it will always be a fight. But it doesn’t have to be that way between us.”
“I know. I’m just tired of being in the middle.”
“Then don’t be,” I said.
She huffed and sat on my couch.
“I really have to go. I’m going to be late now. Lock up when you leave,” I repeated.
The door opened to a metal staircase that took me down to the back of the stores off Main Street. The park was peaceful and empty as I walked up Parkway. If I wasn’t late for work, I’d take a detour to grab a coffee and enjoy the beautiful weather.