My sister decided to help your brother “study.”
She went over, dolled up, looking like a freak-show, and came back an hour later, looking ten times happier. Though her lipstick was smudged—an imperfection I didn’t bother to comment on—she still looked beautiful, but, when I went to tell her so, she held up a hand. “Look, X,” she said, running a hand through her messy hair, “Don’t give me some speech about boys being boys, sex, or anything else that will make me cringe with awkwardness. I can look after myself, okay?”
“Okay.”
The thing is: I lived without being cared for, and do you know where that left me? With a girl’s blood on my soul. Now, maybe, just maybe, Naomi is smarter than me, will have some forewarning from my actions.
Still, if something ever happened to her, I don’t think I could live with myself.
But then again, how on Earth do I live with myself now.
