Homewrecker

13 - 𝓫𝓵𝓪𝓷𝓴

I was in the kitchen, peeling the sticker from a McIntosh apple and crumpling it in between my fingers, when I smelled Andi and Taylor-Elise's popcorn starting to burn in the microwave across the kitchen island from me. The pops were few and quieter now, but they were both still in the bedroom, binge-watching episodes of Gossip Girl on Andi's MacBook on her bed, which she got back after David took out Natalie's bed and replaced it with the bunk bed. Natalie gave me the top bunk, but even when I was so close to the ceiling, I still felt like I was intruding when Andi came into the room with Taylor-Elise behind her.

They had been out shopping—something I had been avoiding doing with Amy, whom I overheard suggesting to Andi that she take me with them, which she thankfully refused, saying it would be weird and she wasn't wrong—and paper bags from outlet stores dangled from her wrists like bracelets. Natalie was out on the lake, paddle-boarding with her lake friends, and that left me in the room alone. Until then, anyway, when Andi dumped her bags on her bed and grabbed her laptop, signing onto her parents' Netflix account.

Andi, it seemed, had resumed totally ignoring my existence after forcing me to sleep in her bed a few nights earlier. She never really spoke to me, or looked at me, and went about her summer like I wasn't a part of it. According to Amy, she had a job working at the local drive-in theater a couple miles down the road and spent a few nights a week there, creaking open the door at around three or four in the morning and quietly slipping into bed soon after.

It was a sound I was used to hearing, almost a sort of lullaby I had heard my whole life whenever my mom let the rickety screen door slam shut behind her while she wobbled into the trailer. It was close, but not quite the same.

Taylor-Elise, however, did not seem as used to ignoring me as Andi was, but then again Andi had around seventeen years' worth of experience in that department. Tonight was the first night I had really seen her since coming up to the lake house last week, not just evidence that she was there, like her laughter coming in from outside or quick glimpses of her through windows or doorframes.

Now she was actually in the room, looking more timid than she probably ever had been in Andi's bedroom before, purposefully trying not to look up at the top bunk as Andi asked her if she wanted to restart the episode or pick up where they left off. Within a few minutes of restarting the episode, both she and Andi were on her bed, talking about what snacks they had in the house.

I crawled down the ladder, grabbing my phone, and then walked out of the room without saying anything to either of them. If they were going to pretend like I wasn't there, then I might as well not have been.

Besides, I had never seen Gossip Girl so even if they did restart the episode, I was still going to be totally behind on what was going on.

I had just taken a bite out of the apple when I heard footsteps ambling down the hallway and Taylor-Elise appeared in the doorframe, looking over her shoulder and laughing at something Andi was shouting from the bedroom. When she turned around and saw me, her hand already grasping for the microwave handle like she had done this thousands of times before, which she probably had, her eyes widened slightly before she quickly dropped them to the floor.

Eyeshadow had been swept and blended over one of her eyelids, shades of bronze just barely deeper than her skin tone darkened her crease except for her actual eyelid which had a shimmering gold. Bright orange eyeliner was curved around her tear duct, but black liner was applied near her eyelashes. There were more shades of pigment on the inside of her arm, glittering under the overhead kitchen lighting as she took the popcorn out of the microwave, like the ones I normally saw adorning Andi's arms.

I knew they were probably doing something for Andi's YouTube channel, like practicing a summer look tutorial or something, something I hadn't realized was this much. Andi had spent the past several days in a room down the hallway from her bedroom, arranging filming lights and a backdrop that only extended to the wall the camera faced. Fairy lights were strung up, with polaroid pictures pinned to the string, a vanity behind a barstool that was positioned in a way it wouldn't catch the camera's reflection.