Knights of the Grey City

Chapter 54 - FAMILY

I scowled at my sister as she sipped coffee at my kitchen table, after she had invited herself into my kitchen and placed all of her groceries in my fridge.

She made a face. "Your coffee maker sucks. This is watery."

I sighed, unsuccessfully attempting to dispel the anger and frustration that were building inside me, then asked her for the third time: "What the hell are you doing here?"

"I'm an adult," she stated. "I can go wherever I want. And I wanted to come visit my brother in Toronto, what's the problem?"

"Well, let me make a list," I said, knowing she wasn't actually deaf to my tone of voice. "You didn't call first, so I had no idea to expect you. There's no goddamn space here, as you can clearly see."

"You've got a couch," she observed, taking another sip of watery coffee.

"More of a loveseat," I said, though she was small enough that she likely wouldn't have a problem sleeping on it. "What else? You've got school."

"I do not," she declared. "There's a thing called reading week."

I blinked. "Oh... all right. But Eli's not on reading week."

"He's part time, his schedule is different."

"Don't change the subject," I warned her. "How about Mom and Dad, how do they feel about this little escapade?"

Her eyes flashed. "Seeing as you have been ignoring our calls for weeks, neither of them are very thrilled with you right now. So, in order to keep from pissing both of them off, I told them I was going to stay with a friend for reading week."

I kneaded my temples, where a headache had started to pound. "All right, so, they don't know you're here, you took a train all by yourself to Toronto, and have now invited yourself into my apartment for the whole week. Have I got that right?"

"Correct," she said.

"Did Eli know you were coming?"

"Nope," she claimed. "This was all me, bro. He may have mentioned you were being kinda weird, maybe could use some decent, healthy food or something."

I sighed heavily and rested my head in my hands. "Why?"

"You know why." Her voice went serious and I chose not to look at her. "Something's going on with you. I was hurt when you didn't just tell me about whatever it was, after how hard we worked on your trust issues before, but I'm over it now. It's not about me."

I slowly raised my head. "Esther? Look at me. I'm fine. Do I look like I'm in a gang? Drinking myself to death? Do I look half as bad as I did four years ago?"

She frowned thoughtfully. "No, you look fine. Good, even."

"There you go. This isn't necessary," I said.

"Alright then, answer me this." She raised her eyebrows. "How did you end up in the hospital?"

"Like I've already told everyone and their brother, I don't know."

"All right. Why haven't you answered any of my texts?"

Stay away from them, said my father in the hospital line, looking at me like I was a stranger.

"It's complicated," I told her. "I'm... busy."

"Alright." I tried not to see the flash of hurt in her eyes, but Esther always wore her heart on her sleeve. "I promise not to get in the way. You won't even know I'm here."

I sighed. "Why can't you just let this go?"

"Maybe you've got a great reason for hiding something from me," she said, leaning back and crossing her arms. "Maybe you've got a great reason for trying to cut off contact. I don't know what on earth that could be, mind you. But I'm just not going to make it that easy for you."