Homewrecker

20 ~ 𝔀𝓪𝓽𝓮𝓻𝓵𝓸𝓰𝓰𝓮𝓭

The shadow of the raindrops trickling against the glass of the sunroof fell over the bare skin of my arms in the Suburban as Andi drove me back to the church, everything quiet except for the pounding of the rain against the metal and the crooning of a Billie Eilish song on the radio coming through the speakers.

The fabric of Taylor-Elise's dress was soaked against my skin, clinging to my stomach and my thighs as chilled rainwater fell down the curve of my spine and made awkward suctioning noises against the Suburban's leather seats. The braid Ethan did was wet and heavy against my shoulder, hair starting to spill out from the folds, and the soles of the heels Amy had bought for me were muddied and damp against the floormats.

I was cold, especially with the air conditioning blasting against my wet clothes, but I wasn't sure I could totally blame the prickling of my skin on that. Like the dress clung to me, I clung to the memory of Kingston sitting so close to me on the cinderblock steps, my arm against his side and feeling every one of his breaths as they slowed then sped up when he started to bridge that distance between us. Breathing in the scent of cigarettes and spiced soap, looking through his rain-speckled glasses to meet his gaze, counting the seconds until I couldn't just feel his breathing against my arm but against my lips too.

It was like Kingston Castaneda was a dampener for all of the feelings I had, for the thoughts that followed me like shadows, and he could turn everything into darkness, but in a good way. Like, everything else faded from view until all we could see was each other, right in front of ourselves.

And then Andi came, and shone her headlights at us and brought us out of the little world we had found.

She didn't get out of the Suburban at first, the windshield wipers moving across the glass in front of her obscuring her expression from me as she rolled up the window beside her, the glow from her phone gleaming against the black material of her dress.

Her blonde curls looked as if they had been dampened from the rain, frizz starting to form around the hair flat against her head. Kingston beside me wondered out loud if he should go over and say something to her, introduce himself after I told him that was Andi, my biological half-sister I described her. I shook my head when she still didn't look up from her phone, wipers still going, and stood up from the cinderblock.

I looked over at Kingston when, instead of walking over to the idling Suburban, I treaded up the cinderblocks and gingerly walked through the gaping hole where the screen door had been. Even on my walk over here, I still hadn't seen it.

"Thanks for going to the funeral," I told him, even though it felt like the smallest of things I could thank him for. He pulled me back, kept me from probably dying for an already dead mom. He showed me an Apollo 13 movie poster on his phone. He let me stop thinking. But those all felt like strange things to thank someone for out loud, so I said the easiest one. "See you around, Kingston."

He frowned, glancing over at the Suburban with its engine still running a few feet away but Andi was still on her phone and, like always, totally disinterested in whatever I was doing. "Wait, aren't you supposed to go with your sister?"

I shot him a look, carefully stepping one of my heels against the thoroughly soaked orange carpeting of my living room and hearing as it made a squishing against the sole. "Not really my sister," I pointed out, because she and Natalie were sisters with their inside jokes and shared childhood and everything I didn't have. I had my mom, this trailer, this town. The Solidays might as well as be distant cousins, three times removed. Technically family, but not really. "And she can wait. I want to get my stuff."

"Isn't it all ruined?"

I shrugged, hearing the floorboards underneath my footsteps creaking as I took another step further into the living room. The boxy television set was still on the carpet, screen first against the orange fibers that looked even darker now that they were completely soaked. The blinds draped over the coffee were still bent and twisted, the cord tied in knots, and mud was caked in the small crevices.