Stolen Crush

by Stunich, C. M.

  “Max!” I shout, probably a little louder than I should. A few sets of eyes swing my way before the coffee shop’s occupants go back to their phones or laptops or lattes. I'm out of my seat and in her arms before I know it, crushed into a sweet-smelling hug that feels like it contains every ounce of warmth in the world.

  “Baby sister,” she breathes, crushing my head beneath her chin. At five-eight, I'm about as average a height as there is, but still, my sister towers over me at six-one. We always used to laugh about it because both my grandparents are my height, as is Saffron. Maxine is the only person in the Banks family to exceed six feet. Since we know absolutely nothing about her biological father, we always assumed she got it from his side. And since we know nothing about mine, we always assumed any oddities between me and my family were the result of patriarchal DNA.

  Only … Maxine is related to the Banks, whereas I am most definitely not.

  After the surprise discovery of my lineage, we were both DNA tested, just to see if Saffron might’ve been lying about both of her supposed daughters. But no. Maxine is a true Banks. It’s just me that’s the odd one out.

  “I've missed you so much,” I murmur, doing my best not to cry. I don't want to show the world how much I'm hurting. It's easier if I don't, if I pretend like I can handle this situation as if it’s any other, just a problem to be solved.

  Even before the incident with the Netflix show, and the lawyers, and the FBI, Maxine had been away at college since August. I hadn't seen her since my birthday, so this is a reunion that’s been a long time coming.

  “Not as much as I missed you, I promise,” she assures me, scooting me back so that she can look me over. She frowns at me and lifts up a strand of green hair, teasing it around her pointer finger. As usual, her nails are short but pretty, decorated with red tulips that she likely painted on herself using a brush the size of a toothpick. “I can't believe that woman hasn’t made you dye your hair yet.” She continues to frown, the harsh emphasis of the words that woman hanging in the air like smoke. Maxine flat-out refuses to call Tess anything but that.

  X reappears beside us with a drink carrier, setting it on the table behind me. As soon as my sister’s eyes move from me to him, her entire face lights up. It’s then that I see it, how much she’s in love with him. My chest tightens considerably, and my breath releases in a sharp exhale.

  I have never—and I mean never—seen my older sister look at a boy the way she's looking at Maxx Wright, like her heart has been wrapped in brown paper and twine, ready to deliver to his door, never to be returned. He isn’t looking at her just now, taking the drinks from the carrier so that he can return it to the counter. To look at Maxine now, you’d think he were a knight in shining armor, delivering a fatal blow to the dragon. A hero. A savior. A soul mate.

  Goose bumps break out across my arms as I turn around, meaning to take the carrier from X’s hands so I can carry it back to the counter myself. Our fingers brush, and a zing shoots through me that only serves to make me more confused. That, and sick to my stomach.

  You can’t control your thoughts, but you can control your actions, Dakota.

  It’s the same mantra I've been feeding myself since I found out about Tess. The same mantra that I've been repeating every waking hour for weeks.

  Our eyes meet, and I wonder if I’ve just suddenly developed a fever or if the heater in the café is cranked up too high or if perhaps I’m just losing my damn mind here.

  “I've got it,” I say, scurrying away with the plastic tray and staring into the cup holders, at the stray droplets of condensation. X noticed my reaction, but I’m hoping like hell that Maxine didn’t. As I set the tray on the counter and glance back, I find the two of them smiling at one another. Much to my strange relief, they don't hug or kiss in front of me.

  “So,” Maxine says, settling into a leather chesterfield armchair beside X while I take the seat across from her. The coffee shop that we're in is an eclectic mix of antiques and floral wallpaper set with stained concrete floors and decidedly modern light fixtures and art pieces. It's very Pacific Northwest, or so the online reviews said. “How are you settling in?” Maxine pauses and reaches up to adjust her dark hair, its natural shade so similar to my own that I doubt anyone ever looked at us and thought we were anything but blood related.

  How cruel was fate, to do that to me? Why couldn't I have been born looking different, maybe with a constant sense of not belonging? Then it might not have been such a shock. The thing is, I’ve always felt loved and wanted with the Banks, always like an integral part of the family. Even now, nothing has changed except for my geographical location.

  I stare down at the lid on my coffee, tracing the word biodegradable on the top.

  “Please tell me you still hate it here?” Maxine asks, and X gives her a sharp look. “What?” She glances back at him, one brow raised. “I know I'm being selfish, but Dakota is my little sister. I'm not surrendering her to some guy who makes rude as fuck TikToks.”

  X cringes slightly, his jaw tightening as he glances off to one side. I can smell him from where I'm sitting, and I don't mean that in a bad way. He smells like freshly mowed grass and some sort of sporty aftershave that reminds me of citrusy drinks sipped beside a cool blue pool in summer. Ugh.

  And … wow. Wow. Why the fuck do I keep smelling guys? Who does that?! I almost facepalm right then and there, but that would require admitting that I’m a pervert who sniffs people and who gets zings and shocks and tingles when they touch attractive peers. Seriously. First, Parrish. Then Chasm. Now this Maxx guy? Blergh.

  “Yeah,” X starts, almost like he's hesitant to say anything at all. “Parrish can be a total dick sometimes.”

  My brows go up in surprise as I lean forward, interest piqued.

  “Wait, you know Parrish?” I ask, because there’s just no way. That's too big of a coincidence.

  Maxx of the double Xs offers me up an apologetic smile, as if he has some reason to feel responsible for the actions of a stranger. With a small sigh, he stirs his drink, watching the bubbles catch on the straw before lifting his green eyes up to mine.

  Another zing shoots through me that I vehemently ignore.

  “We went to school together for most of our lives,” he says, softening the revelation with another award-winning smile. I do my best to shield myself against his natural charisma, lifting my coffee to my lips to distract myself. Maxine, at least, doesn't seem to notice anything amiss. Good. Because I'd sooner throw myself off a cliff into the sea before hitting on my sister’s boyfriend. You have to earn her trust but once you have it, it’s implicit. “Me and Parrish and Chasm.”

  “Chasm,” I repeat, frowning as I think about our strange interaction this morning. Chalk it up to natural curiosity, he said. I don't buy that for a second. Not for the first time, I wonder if I’ve just walked into a trap of some sort. Maybe he is planning on holding this over my head? Or maybe he’s thinking of ratting me out to Tess, just to see me suffer? Either way, I wouldn't be surprised.

  “You still consider them your best friends, don't you?” Maxine clarifies, and X offers up another casual shrug. “He video chats them at least once a week.” She pauses to roll her eyes and then lets out a long-suffering sigh. “That, and they game at least six days a week.”

  They game.

  The idea of Parrish, Chasm, and X gaming together makes me fidgety, but I can’t exactly put my finger on why that is. Sip coffee, act normal, don’t let them know what a gamer fangirl you are.

  “If Parrish is giving you a hard time, I could talk to him,” X offers, but I know immediately that whatever he might say isn’t going to help. I redirect my attention back to my drink. “He's struggling with this, too, I think.”

  I turn my attention back up to X, trying not to feel offended by his statement.

  “You're … defending him?” I query back, my voice thick with surprise. X sits up straight in his seat and leans back, running his tongue across his lower lip as M
axine gives him a look that very clearly demands he explain himself. “I've tried to be nice to him from moment one. He posted a TikTok rating my looks—poorly, I might add. It would've been an offensive move either way.” I turn my attention to the street outside, to the passersby wearing t-shirts in the rain, like they don't care that they’re getting wet. Hardly anyone is using an umbrella. Yet another PNW quirk. According to local lore, you can spot a foreigner miles off by the fact that they wear coats in the cold or use umbrellas. And by foreigner, I mean Californian. “Parrish chose to hate me before he even met me.”

  “He's resentful toward you, I think,” X tries to explain, but Maxine’s harsh laugh knocks the conversation off-course for a minute.

  “Resentful? My little sister’s been kidnapped twice at this point. Once, when she was two and again, just a few weeks ago. She’s lost everything. What has Parrish lost? Nothing but a little bit of attention. In exchange, he gained the most amazing sister in the world.” Maxine turns to me, very clearly in love with Maxx Wright but also very clearly on my side. Always. Forever. I smile back at her, reaching out so that she can give my hand a squeeze.

  “Has Parrish said anything to you?” I ask, looking over at X. I don't want to exist in a world where my own beliefs and ideas are parroted back at me, deafening me to the thoughts and feelings of others. Empathy is the savior of society. If Parrish feels like I’ve done something to him, or if he’s suffering, then I want to know about it.

  Maxine frowns, but waits for X to answer.

  “He isn't exactly the sort of person who shares his feelings freely,” X offers dryly, checking his phone. “But he and Chas are supposed to be at the party tonight. It's no problem if you want me to talk to them.”

  “Please don't,” I blurt, feeling my anxiety creep up on me like a shroud. I have the distinct feeling that being told off by their elder bestie will only make Chasm and Parrish like me less than they do, a feat that doesn't seem entirely possible, but which can only make this living hell I'm tiptoeing through worse. Instead, I turn to my sister.

  “I don't care about Parrish or Chasm or anybody else here,” I tell her, and I almost mean it. “I want to talk to Grandma and Grandpa.”

  Maxine’s face gets tight then, and I can see right through her brave big sister act to the fear and pain underneath. Something is going on that she isn't telling me, something that I'm most definitely not going to like.

  “Maxie …” I warn when it looks like she might hesitate. “What's going on?”

  “Kota,” she starts, her voice softening as she scoots her coffee away and shifts her seat to be closer to me. Her brow is furrowed with pain, lids drooped, mouth downturned in a rare frown. Maxine is one of those people who finds happiness in everything, who manages to salvage the worst situations imaginable. But, maybe, not this one. “They're heartbroken.” My own throat closes up at her words, even though I already knew that part of the story. Not only could I see it my grandparents’ faces when they were loading up Tess’ rental car with my bags, but I feel it in my own heart, that same sick, sad longing for the life we were supposed to have. “And they're not handling it well. Grandpa went to the hospital last week—”

  A small sound escapes me as panic takes over, the buzz of it deafening me to the chatter in the coffee shop. All the while, X sits quietly, watching us both with an expression that says he very clearly feels like the third wheel here.

  “The hospital?” I repeat as Maxine takes in a deep breath and then lets it out, nice and slow.

  “I shouldn't have phrased it like that,” she begins, scooting her chair close enough to mine that the arms bump together with a wooden clack. “He fell carrying a bag of potting soil up the steps to the deck and broke his leg.” My hand goes to my chest, fingers curling in the fabric of my shirt.

  “I want to talk to them,” I tell Maxine, knowing that I’m not leaving this coffee shop without at least attempting a phone call. If they won't pick up—and they might not because they're not just protecting themselves, but Saffron as well—that’s one thing. But I have to try. I have to at least fucking try.

  Maxine looks unsure for a moment, glancing toward X in a quiet, couple-y sort of way, like they might’ve already talked this over at some point together. He gives her a sympathetic half-smile in response, vaguely nodding his head, like he’s telling her that whatever she chooses to do, it’ll be the right thing.

  My face sours up, like I've bitten into a lemon. That sick sense of free-falling takes over me again, and I feel suddenly like I don't belong here either, in the one place I always thought I would: with my sister.

  “Okay,” she says finally, and I exhale again, letting out a gust of that nervous energy. Maxine pulls her phone from the pocket of her bag, a plain canvas thing designed more for backpacking in the woods than for hanging out in a coffee shop in Seattle. My sister is an outdoorsy girl in her heart, so much happier playing in the dirt than curling up inside with a PlayStation, a Kindle, and an iPad. She dials up our grandparents, holding her phone in just such a way that I won’t be visible should they answer.

  “Maxie,” Grandma Carmen says, smiling as she answers, the screen showing the extent of the greenhouse garden behind her, the one that we planted together shortly before I left. There are sprouts there, marking the passage of time, and I hate that. I hate that the world is moving on like nothing at all has happened, spinning and twirling and ticking. “Where are you, baby?”

  “In a coffee shop,” Maxie says brightly, a bead of sweat appearing on her temple. I glance over at X and find him leaning back in his seat, his red windbreaker unzipped, a t-shirt underneath with the words Wright Family Racing scrawled across the front of it. “In Seattle.”

  There’s a bit of a pause as our grandmother’s face—a face so similarly shaped to my own—twists up in confusion. The University of Oregon is in Eugene, nearly five hours from Seattle proper. She'll be wondering why Maxie is here and …

  “Guess who've I've got with me?” my sister adds cheerily, tilting her phone just enough that I appear in the window in the bottom corner beside Maxine.

  “Grandma,” I breathe, and then tears prick at the edges of my eyes. A small gasp escapes her before she clamps a hand over her mouth, her own expression a strange mix between relief and agony. Does she even want to see me? Or am I only thinking of myself? It’s a bit too late now to second guess the decision, so I force yet another smile, one that I hope hides all of my pain and heartbreak and uncertainty.

  “Dakota,” she whispers back, dropping her hand to her side, her dark eyes shining with unshed tears. “How are you doing, honey? We've missed you so much.”

  “I hate it here.” The words fall from my lips before I can stop them, dredging up this surge of emotion that I thought I had under better control. But no. No, nothing in my life feels like it’s in my control right now because … it isn't. I'm sixteen therefore, according to the law, I am not a person. I’m just a possession to be shuffled from place to place, something to be won with court cases and DNA tests. “I want to come home.”

  Those tears my grandmother was fighting so hard to push back start up again, draining down her face in two salty rivulets. This isn’t fair of me, not at all. If she could do anything to bring me home, she would. I know that. There’s nothing Carmen Banks can do to fix this and yet, here I am, telling her how much I hate it, how much I want to leave. I should lie. I should tell her that I like it here, that I’ve got a large room with a lake view, that …

  “Tess wants me to ship your things,” Carmen says, her voice breaking a bit. “All your furniture, your clothes … everything.” Yes, that’s right. Because I asked her to. Because I was trying to soften her up, to make things easier on my end yet again. I didn’t think about how my grandparents would feel, emptying my room, watching as movers wrapped my furniture in pads and dragged the pieces down the old stairs. “Would that make you feel better, being surrounded by things from home?”

  I open my mouth to tell
her everything: how I despise Kimber, how awful Parrish is, how desperate and clingy and suffocating I find Tess’ attention. But then I look into her face, really look at it, and I know that I have to put my grandmother’s feelings before my own.

  To buy myself an extra moment, I pick up my coffee and take a small sip, swallowing all of my pain and anger and resentment along with the mouthful of mocha. I plaster on another fake smile. I wonder how many of them I have in me? Is there a limitlessness to the amount of time we as humans can fake our own emotions? Or do they just all come tumbling out at some point, cascading like a rockslide around our hearts until it’s quiet and dark and buried?

  “I think it would help immensely,” I admit, feeling a sharp sting of panic at the idea of my room back home being empty and barren, wiped clean, erased like I was never there. Even Maxine’s room still looks like hers, minus some clothing, a lamp, and a few spare pieces of décor. When she comes home on holidays, she stays in her own bed, puts her clothes in her own dresser, paints her nails at the same antique dressing table she’s had in her room since my earliest memories.

  I try to tell myself that, if by some miracle, some supernatural intervention by the universe, Tess allows me to go home, she’s wealthy enough to pay for it all to be shipped back. It isn’t permanent. That’s what I take comfort in: that nothing in this world is permanent. Everything changes—even this. Worst case scenario, the day that I turn eighteen, I’m getting the fuck out of here.

  “My room looks out at the lake,” I offer, my own watery smile no more real than my grandmother’s. But we each pretend, because that’s all we can do at this point, play the roles that were assigned to us. “I'll send Maxine some pics and she can forward them to you.”

  We both pause, Tess’ rule of zero contact for a year hanging heavy around both of our hearts.

  “She won't find out about this,” I explain hastily, glancing over at Maxine. She isn’t bothering to hide her tears. Her face, despite being wet with salt, is much more real than mine or my grandmother’s. That’s one of the things I’ve always liked about her, one of the same things that always gets her into trouble: my sister doesn't hide her emotions, not for any reason. There are positives and negatives to that, to be sure. “Tess, I mean. We’re calling from Maxine’s phone, and I snuck out of the house …”