Sisters

9.

STEPHANIE

My mentor forced me to take a couple of days off which was unnecessary for me. After Alex and Leo, I've had enough of my love failures, at least for a while. I came to terms with the fact that I idealized a man when I didn't know him at all and I just wanted to forget him, and my job successfully diverted my thoughts from him. Nicole and my apartment is brilliantly clean, I even did the cleaning I hated so much out of boredom. Like my sister, I became a heavy workaholic.

I ended up reading a love novel that Lacey recommended to me. It's hard to say that I was disappointed with the end result. I don't know for what reason I wished for a story with an unhappy ending. I guess it would be somehow more realistic for me then, because it would remind me of the reality that each of us lives. Thus the main characters who met by chance ended up living happily ever after with a pack of children running around them, and they loved each other unconditionally even after so many years. This was too much of a cliché for me though.

The phone vibrated on the desk of my room and I immediately got up hoping that someone needed me at work, but it was just my friend who probably wanted to tell me the new gossip circulating around the hospital. She is the most positive person I know and she is really dear to me, but unlike her, I am not really interested in stories about the new relationships of our colleagues.

"You'll never guess what happened.." She began euphorically as soon as I answered.

"Lacey, I'm not really interested in the love lives of hospital doctors ..."

"It's not about them now, did you take the newspaper in your hands at all?"

"You know that I'm not interested in the lives of celebrities and politics, and I saw for myself how many people can lie just to have their articles read, so I didn't.." I tried to explain to her again, but she interrupted me in surprise.

Why do I even have a feeling that I won't like her news?

"Have you seen those love photos of your older sister with that famous corporation owner when they haven't seen him with a girl for more than five years because he's known for keeping his personal life a top secret? Man, sparks just burst out of their eyes, and just that hug..." she enchantedly began to describe some of her fantasies to me.

"Come on, Lacey, I'm not in the mood for your jokes. Call me if anyone needs me, not even Nicole let me work a couple of shifts at her clinic..." I complained.

Nicole was persistent in her intention not to let me work, because she shared the opinion of my mentor. According to her, I became a heavy addict from work and I was chronically exhausted because of that, but if we take into account her work, she did not have the right to say anything...

"Don't tell me you really don't know," Lacey's voice brought me back to my thoughts.

"Take your laptop and look at the cover of the first magazine you see."

I obeyed her, though I was tempted to reject her, my sister is too cold and closed a person to ever be seen in the company of a man in public, but as soon as I turned on my computer I had what to see. The phone fell out of my hand in shock, I stared at the photos in front of me so much that I didn't even care about the phone. A million different thoughts and questions flew through my head, and I had no answer to any of them.

"Stephanie?" I heard Lacey's voice, but I kept flipping through the photos.

"I'll call you later," I picked up the phone and interrupted our conversation, without further explanation with her, now I definitely didn't know what to tell her.