His Own Stepsister

I had exactly one thing that's consistent when it comes to Vivian. Do not look directly at her directly in the eyes; the exact way you are not supposed to look at an eclipse.

Well, I might have fucked that up already. I came downstairs for coffee and found her already there, perched on a stool like she owned the counter, which in a sense, very soon, she might.

I had spent six years perfecting the art of being somewhere else whenever Vivian was in a room. It was not difficult, logistically. The Grimwood house had more hallways than it had reasons for, and living here, I had learned every alternate route through it the way other people learn shortcuts through a city they actually live in. I could hear a car in the drive and be two floors away within ninety seconds. I could hear her laugh carry up a staircase and find somewhere else to need to be.

It was not personal, or at least I had always told myself it wasn't, the same way I told myself a lot of things that did not survive close inspection.

This morning I didn't hear the car, or maybe I'm just stuck with my own personal issues, and I had come downstairs half asleep, craving coffee with the single-minded urgency of someone who had barely slept, and walked directly into the one person in this house I had built an entire evasive architecture around avoiding.

"Rosalie." She said my name like she was trying it out, testing whether it fit in her mouth. "I don't think we've actually talked, just the two of us."

"No," I agreed, reaching for a mug with hands that I tried, with very significant effort, to stay steady. "I...I guess we haven't."

She was dressed very very nice, and she pulled off that effortless perfect look. Up close, without the gold mask, she had a face that was almost unfairly kind looking, which was its own kind of insult, because some part of me had wanted her to be easy to hate.

I had built a version of her in my head over the last several weeks, in the hours I was not proud of, a version with sharp edges and a cold, calculating gaze, someone it would be simple to resent without complication. But the woman sitting here...she's a real woman sitting on that stool, and definitely doesn't match the one I had constructed.

She had a small chip in her nail polish she had not bothered to fix. She looked, if I was being honest with myself, tired in a way that had nothing to do with the hour.

"Roman mentioned you're starting at the hotel," she said. "That's good. It's a nice place to work. Lots of exposure to the right people."

I did not know what to do with the information that Roman had mentioned me to her at all, and all I could do was just file it away with the rest of the small, dangerous facts I had started collecting since the masquerade, a drawer that was getting fuller than I liked, each new addition making the whole thing harder to keep shut.

"What did he say," I asked, before I could stop myself, the question slipped out with curiosity that's the exact opposite of what my head was screaming, that I should run away from here.

"Just that you'd graduated top of your program and that the Aurelia was lucky to have you." Vivian shrugged, like it was an ordinary, forgettable comment, and maybe to her it was. "He doesn't talk about you often, actually. Which is strange, now that I say it out loud. I'd have thought a man would mention his own stepsister more than once every few months."

His Own Stepsister.

I kept my face as neutral as I could manage, which was becoming a full time occupation in this house. "We're not that close," I said, letting the lie slip easily out of my tongue.

"Mm." She did not sound like she believed or didn't, but she let it go, returning her attention to the coffee she still was not drinking.

"How's he doing," I asked, mostly to have something to say, and immediately regretted the question, because her face did something I had not expected. Something flickered there, small and tired, and it disappeared almost before I could check what it is.

"Honestly? Distracted." She said it lightly, stirring her coffee, still not actually drinking it. "He's been somewhere else in his head for weeks. I used to think it was work." She looked up at me then, and for one terrible second I thought she knew, I thought the whole kitchen was about to collapse around that single look, but her expression was only curious, and not accusing in any way, even though my head was expecting the worst thing ever. "Does he seem different to you? You'd know better than me. You've known him longer than I have."

"We're not that close, and even the few times we talk, we never talk about his moods," I said, which was actually very true, or maybe part of it was.

She laughed, short and a little bitter. "No, I don't suppose you would." She set her cup down, untouched. "Can I tell you something strange? We haven't actually needed the guest room at the lake house since before the party. He used to always want to go up there on weekends. Lately he just finds reasons not to."

My heart left me completely, and I could hear my heartbeat in my ear. I had absolutely no idea what the correct human response was to that sentence. My body had apparently decided the correct response was to go completely still, with the mug halfway to my mouth, and my heart kept making the loudest sounds.

I managed to snap out of my stupor. "Maybe he's just busy," I offered, in a voice that sounded almost normal if you didn't know what to listen for.

"Maybe." She looked at me for one more second too long, and I could see something assessing in it, something that's not been there a moment ago, and then she smiled. "Anyway. Good luck Monday. I'm sure you'll be wonderful at it."

She left the kitchen with her coffee still full behind her, and I stood there holding my own mug, trying to work out whether what had just happened was a conversation or a test, and whether I had passed it or simply not yet failed.

I thought about the chip in her nail polish, about the exhaustion in her face. And I couldn't help but realize that I'd spent weeks building her into someone it would be easy to despise, and instead I had just stood in a kitchen and watched a woman quietly, carefully, trying to understand why the man she was marrying might have started pulling away from her, for no reason at all.

Maybe it was work, or there are reasons. Maybe it was me.

I didn't finish my coffee. I couldn't. I poured it out, rinsed the mug, and went back upstairs to finish packing, because some mornings the only honest thing left to do is get out of a room before you say something you cannot take back.