Chapter 41 Sister question

Chapter 41 Sister question
Mia's POV

I did not go to Jade's room after practice. I did not corner her in the hallway. I did not follow her car home. I gave myself the drive back and the shower and two hours of silence in my room with the door shut and my phone face down on the desk.

Two hours was all I could manage.

I found her in the living room. She was on the couch with her legs tucked under her, scrolling through her phone. She did not look up when I came in. She knew I was there. Jade always knew.

I sat down in the chair across from her.

"You asked Zack if he's serious about me."

She kept scrolling. "I asked a question. He told me to ask you. So I'm asking you."

"I didn't hear a question."

She looked up. "Fine. Are you serious about him, Mia."

"That's none of your business."

"Everything in this house is my business. I live here too."

"You live here. You don't get to interview the people I'm dating."

"Dating." She repeated the word like she was tasting it. "That's what we're calling it."

"What would you call it."

"I'd call it five weeks of practice and two public dinners and one porch step. That's not dating, Mia. That's a trial run."

"And you thought you'd offer yourself as the alternative."

"I thought I'd ask a question. Which I did. And he told me to ask you. Which is why I'm sitting here listening to you pretend you're not threatened."

"I'm not threatened."

"Then why are you in the living room asking foolish questions at this time of the night?"

I pressed my lips together. She was good at this. She had always been good at this. She could take a conversation and spin it until you were the one defending yourself even though you had walked in with the upper hand.

She put the phone down on the cushion beside her. She looked at me with the face she used when she wanted me to know she was being patient. The face that said she was the reasonable one and I was the one making this harder than it needed to be.

"You've known him for what. A month? Six weeks?"

"Five weeks."

"Five weeks. And you're already acting like he belongs to you."

"I never said he belongs to me."

"You didn't have to. You should have seen your face at the boards this morning. You were watching us through the glass like I was stealing something."

The word hit me in the chest. Stealing. She said it flat. She said it like it was a fact she was reporting and not a grenade she was throwing across the living room.

"I wasn't watching you."

"Mia. Come on."

"I was lacing my skates."

"You were lacing your skates and watching me through the glass. I know you. I have known you for your entire life, nineteen fucking years. I know what your face does when you're pretending not to care."

I clenched my teeth. She was right. I hated that she was right.

"Why do you care, Jade? Seriously. Why does it matter to you whether I'm serious about him or not?"

She pulled her legs out from under her. She put both feet on the floor. She leaned forward with her elbows on her knees and her hands together and she looked at me like she was deciding how much of herself to show me.

"Because if you're not serious about him, someone else will be."

"Someone else. Meaning you."

"Meaning anyone."

"Bullshit. Meaning you."

"Fine. Meaning me. Is that what you wanted to hear?"

"I wanted to hear that my sister isn't trying to move on the guy I'm with."

"The guy you're with." She tilted her head. "Or the guy you're figuring out? Because those aren't the same thing, Mia, and you know it."

"You don't get to decide where I am with him."

"I'm not deciding anything. I'm reading the room. And the room says you've got one foot in and one foot out and you've had one foot out since the day he moved in."

"That's not true."

"Then why did Luca stand in the kitchen this morning and ask you to tell him it was nothing. And why didn't you answer him?"

My breath caught. She had heard that. She had heard it from upstairs or from the hallway or from wherever the hell Jade went when she wanted to hear things she was not supposed to hear.

"You were listening."

"I live here, Mia. I hear things. The walls in this house are thin and you and Luca aren't exactly quiet."

The room went quiet. Dad's footsteps moved across the floor upstairs.

"Don't," I said.

"Don't what?"

"Don't act like you have a stake in either of them."

"Why not?"

"Because you don't."

"Says who."

"Says me. Says the fact that Luca was mine before you ever looked at him and Zack is my partner and you don't get to walk into this and help yourself because you're bored or lonely or whatever the hell this is."

The words came out harder than I meant them to. Louder. My voice cracked on the word lonely and I hated myself for it because Jade would hear the crack and she would file it away and she would use it later.

She didn't flinch.

She sat there with her hands still pressed together and her eyes still on me and she let the silence stretch until I wanted to scream into it.

Then her voice went quiet. Not soft. Quiet. There was a difference. Soft was a choice. Quiet was what happened when Jade stopped performing.

"I have a stake in everyone in this house. I'm sorry if you forgot that."

I didn't answer.

She stood up. She smoothed the front of her joggers. She picked up her phone from the cushion. She walked to the doorway.

She turned.

"By the way. He kept the coffee."