Chapter 3 Baby Sister

Madison

I show up an hour after everyone else, once the party's already thinning out. That's on purpose. I've never liked crowds, and I definitely never liked watching my little sister get handed things I had to fight for. Better to arrive late, when the exhaustion has already set in and people stop performing for each other.

Fashionably late is still fashionable, right? Or does it just look desperate when you're showing up to your own sister's party? Whatever. I'm here now. Let the games begin.

I don't knock. I never knock at this house. Eighteen years of living here does that to a person. Moving out doesn't erase the habit, no matter what the technicalities say. The doorknob still turns the same way it always has, a small, stupid comfort I'd never admit to needing.

The kitchen smells like store-bought frosting and dollar-store balloons, sugary and cheap in a way that makes me almost nostalgic. I grab a leftover cupcake off the counter and peel the wrapper down in one slow motion, taking my time about it the way I take my time about everything now.

Cute party, Ave. Very on-brand. All style, no substance. Just like you.

"Cute party," I say, glancing around at the streamers someone clearly hung in a hurry. "Very high school."

"Thanks for coming," Avery says, and her tone makes it clear she means the exact opposite.

Oh, honey. If you think that was subtle, you're in for a rude awakening.

She still can't hide anything. That much hasn't changed. Her face was always a bad liar, even when we were kids and she'd swear up and down she hadn't touched my things.

"Wouldn't miss my baby sister's graduation." I lick frosting off my thumb, watching her over my hand, waiting to see how long it takes her to fidget. "So. Liam seemed cozy."

Her whole face shifts, and there it is, the crack I was waiting for. Something small and involuntary, the kind of thing she probably doesn't even realize she's doing.

Bingo. Gotcha.

"You know him?" she asks, and there's an edge of panic underneath the casual way she tries to ask it.

Oh, you have no idea how well I know him, little sister.

"I go to UCLA too, Avery. It's not that big of a school." I let my smile linger a beat longer than necessary, savoring the way her eyes search my face for something to hold onto. "He's cute. Young. But cute."

"He's nineteen." She says it fast, defensive, like the number is supposed to mean something.

And how many of those nineteen years has he been lying to you, I wonder?

"Right. A freshman." I say it like it's just an observation, but it's not. It's a whole conversation she doesn't know she's having yet, one I've been rehearsing in my head for weeks.

I've known Liam since October. Not the version she thinks she knows, the FaceTime version, the highlight reel he shows a girl three hours away. I know the real one. The one with the apartment she's never seen and the mess he doesn't bother cleaning up for me. The one who forgets to text back for hours because he's too busy with me to remember she exists.

She doesn't need to know that yet. Not until it's more fun for her not to. There's a particular pleasure in watching someone stand at the edge of a truth without pushing them into it.

Mom's voice drifts down from upstairs, something about the guest book, and I let it pull me toward the stairs. But I stop next to Avery first, close enough to catch her cheap drugstore setting spray fighting for space against the same vanilla body spray she's worn since ninth grade. Some things really do stay the same, and there's something almost sad about that, though I don't let it show.

Still wearing the same cheap perfume. Still playing the same innocent role. Some things never change.

"Tell Liam I said hi," I say, casual, like it costs me nothing.

Her face goes still in that specific way it always does right before she understands something she doesn't want to. "What?"

Here it comes. The moment the perfect little party starts to unravel.

"Hm? Oh, nothing." I keep walking, unbothered, savoring the tremor I can hear creeping into her voice. "Just tell him Madison says hi. He'll know what I mean."

"How do you even-"

How do I even what? Know your boyfriend? Know his favorite spots on campus? Know what he sounds like when he- No. Let's not go there yet. Baby steps.

"See you around, baby sis." I toss it over my shoulder like an afterthought, though nothing about this has been unplanned.

I don't look back. I don't need to. I already know exactly what her face is doing, because it's the same face she's made since we were kids, the one that shows up a fraction of a second too late, right when she realizes she's losing. I used to hate that face. Now I collect moments like this one, tucking them away for later.

Upstairs, I sit on the edge of my old bed, the one buried under my mom's scrapbooking supplies now, and pull out my phone. The mattress creaks the same way it always did, worn down by years of a girl who doesn't live here anymore.

God, this room still smells the same. Like it's waiting for a version of me that doesn't exist anymore, some younger, softer Madison who believed being good got you anything at all.

Pathetic. Absolutely pathetic that I still feel something when I come back here. Get it together, Madison.

Madison: she's cute. you didn't tell me she was this into you

Liam: stop

Madison: are you actually bringing her up this weekend

Liam: yeah

Madison: interesting choice

Liam: it's not what you think

Madison: sure it isn't

Oh, Liam. You always did underestimate me. That's your first mistake.

I set the phone face down on the mattress and stare up at the ceiling, at the same water stain that's been there since I was fourteen, shaped like nothing in particular no matter how many times I tried to find a picture in it. I could go back downstairs right now. Say his name loud enough for people to hear. Watch her perfect little graduation night collapse in real time, right there in front of everyone who came to celebrate her.

That would be easy. Almost too easy, and where's the satisfaction in easy.

But some things taste better slow. Watching her figure it out herself, piece by piece, is worth so much more than just handing her the answer. I want to see the exact moment it clicks, want to watch her rebuild the timeline in her head and realize how long she's been the only one who didn't know.

I've waited longer for less.