‘That’s what Georgie says. I’ve tried. I really have. But we move around so much. No one else sees what Rosa does. You have to see it to believe it. You’ve been watching her make the twins hate each other.’
‘Maya doesn’t hate Seimone. She’s just sad.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘It’s not your fault.’
I don’t say anything. I’m not sure that’s true.
‘You need to talk to someone about this.’
My eyes sting. I will not cry in front of Leilani. I can’t quite believe I told her everything, but I’m glad.
‘I know now.’ Leilani slips her hand into mine. ‘We’re friends.’
‘Phew,’ I say. ‘’Cause I’m not sure partial friends are allowed to confide in each other about cheating girlfriends and psychopathic sisters.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Leilani promises to keep a closer eye on Rosa and Seimone. She’s sure Suzette, the au pair, will too. If Leilani can convince her Rosa’s a problem.
I won’t hold my breath.
I head back to the gym. The parentals text to ask if I’m joining them for dinner. Seimone will be there. She’s sleeping over. I tell them no, that I’m sparring at seven.
—Ok, Sally texts, though I know she doesn’t think it is.
This time I’m able to forget Rosa and lose myself, running through defensive sets, katas, punching bags.
Sojourner doesn’t show up for any of the classes. I know she has exams, but I’d been hoping to see her, depending on it.
Georgie finally texts me. In between classes I tell her a bit about what Rosa said. It doesn’t feel as urgent. Talking to Leilani has made me feel like it’s going to be okay. That we can deal with Rosa.
Georgie’s been reading a book on psychopaths in the workplace. —They’re everywhere. Pity you can’t report Rosa to Human Resources.
—Funny.
I’ve yet to read anything that tells me how to deal with one in your family when your family doesn’t believe you.
Sojourner arrives fifteen minutes into sparring. Dido’s showing me how not to telegraph my hook and something else I don’t hear because I’m watching Sojourner walk in, sink to the mat, and put on her wraps.
Dido waves her hand in front of my eyes.
‘Right,’ I say, switching my attention to her.
‘Nope,’ Dido says. ‘You can’t pay attention. I’ll work with someone who can.’
She turns to the next two to spar.
I sink down next to Sojourner.
‘Who were you up against?’ she asks.
I point. ‘I think her name’s Tina?’
‘Tanya. How’d it go?’
‘Alright. I gotta stop moving in a straight line.’
‘Keep your hands up and your shoulders in and your chin down.’
‘Stop telegraphing. Especially my left hook. But other than that I’m good.’
‘It goes out the window in a fight. Real question is, did you land any punches? More than you took?’
‘We were maybe even. Where’s Jaime?’ I ask, though I’m glad she’s not here, that it’s just me and Sojourner. ‘Studying?’
‘Ha! That girl? Study? Nuh uh. She’s out with Elon on what she swears is not a date. I think she wants it to be a date.’
Much like I want this to be a date.
We walk home together, side by side. A couple passes and we shift closer. The back of my hand grazes hers. It’s cool out, but the back of my hand is warm.
‘I’m starving,’ Sojourner says. She takes my hand and pulls me towards a pizza place. There’s a window around the side where you can buy pizza to go. She lets go of my hand. I wish she hadn’t.
‘I thought you had to study?’
Sojourner’s at a public school. They have classes and exams for another week or so.
‘I do. We’ll grab a couple of slices. We can walk and eat. My treat.’
We go to the window and she buys two pieces – slices – of pizza. It’s only two dollars. Even if I wanted to pay I couldn’t. They only take cash.
The slices are handed to us on paper plates with a wad of paper napkins. They’re piping hot and the grease is starting to soak through.
‘Pepperoni. I always buy whatever just came out of the oven.’ ‘Good choice,’ I say, taking a bite and almost burning the roof of my mouth. I wave my hand at it futilely. Sojourner grins.
We wolf the pizza down. It’s all salt and oil and I don’t care. It tastes amazing.
‘There’s grease on your chin.’ I ditch the paper plate and wipe her chin with a napkin.
‘Your parents forgive you? For sparring?’
We’re almost at her place. I’m not sure what to say. I don’t want to talk about parents. I want to talk about Sojourner. I want to kiss her.
‘I like you.’ My cheeks grow warm.
‘Yeah,’ she says.
God. No I like you too. Just yeah, I heard what you said. She’s not even looking at me.
‘I know you said you couldn’t date me.’
‘I did. This is it,’ Sojourner says.
We stand in front of the door to her apartment.
‘I should study,’ she says.
‘Right,’ I say. I slip my hand into hers. ‘Goodnight.’
‘Night,’ she says. She doesn’t let go of my hand.
‘I’m sorry that I don’t believe in—’
Sojourner puts a finger to my lips. ‘Shh.’
I swallow.
We face each other, holding hands, looking into each other’s eyes. I step closer. I lean. My lips are close to hers. The air between us feels heavy, weighted by both our breaths.
It would take such a slight movement for my mouth to be against hers.
‘Can I—’
Sojourner kisses me. Her lips are on mine, then our mouths open, our tongues touch. We wrap our arms around each other, my fingers find the nape of her neck, her hands slide across my shoulder blades.
A wolf whistle louder than a siren snaps us apart.
‘Get a room, yo!’
‘Nasty.’
Two men, not much older than us, walk past way too close, almost bumping us.
‘You want a real man, let me know.’
Sojourner grabs my arm. ‘Jerks.’
‘I wasn’t going to go after them,’ I say. ‘You don’t have to pull me away. I avoid fights.’
She laughs. ‘I was pulling me away. I was this close to giving them a beat down. Then you’d’ve had to back me up.’
‘True. But I know you don’t like to fight outside the ring. I was relying on that.’
She slips her hand back into mine and my heart speeds up again, like before sparring. We’re walking towards Tompkins Square Park. ‘You’re funny,’ she says, ‘and you taste good.’
‘I—’
‘Shh. I don’t want to think of reasons why we shouldn’t. Let’s find the darkest bench.’
We do, under a busted light, and our mouths find each other’s. We’re panting. I’m filled with so much want. Sojourner’s all I can smell or feel or taste. She slides her hand under my shirt, along the flat of my belly. I moan.
‘Stop,’ she breathes. Her mouth is on mine, her hand doesn’t move from my stomach. ‘We should stop.’
‘We should,’ I say, kissing her again, trying to slow.
She kisses me back. We speed up again. Kissing harder, my hands go to the back of her head. She pulls away again, looking at me, panting. She slides her hand up under my shirt to my left nipple. I gasp.
She kisses me again. ‘We have,’ she says in between kisses, ‘to,’ – another kiss – ‘stop.’
We don’t stop.
She has one hand on my chest, the other just above the waistband of my trackpants.
‘Fuck,’ I breathe.
‘You swore,’ Sojourner says, laughing, sliding her hands out from under my shirt. ‘The first time since I told you not to.’
‘God, Sojourner.’
‘All I’ve got are words I’m trying not to say.’
She smiles and it makes me shiver as much as her hands on my skin. I want to ask her to come home with me, to spend the night in my room.
The parentals won’t mind, or if they do, they’ll act like they don’t. We’ve talked about sex. They’ve given me books about it. They’ve made it clear that when I start having it they’d prefer I do it somewhere safe, like my bedroom, that I think of my partner’s pleasure, not just my own – Sally’s words – and that I use a condom.
‘I’ve never,’ I begin.
‘Kissed a girl?’ Sojourner finishes for me.
‘Jesus. Am I that terrible a kisser?’
She smiles. ‘Blasphemy. I was teasing.’ She leans forward, kisses me again. ‘We wouldn’t be on this bench if I didn’t like kissing you.’
‘Right,’ I say. ‘I’m actually pretty bloody good at it is what I think you mean to say. I’ve had a lot of practice.’
‘Modest.’
‘Very. I’ve kissed and kissed and kissed and kissed and never done anything more.’
‘Nothing more?’
I shake my head.
‘You’ve never kissed a girl’s neck?’
‘Hilarious,’ I say, leaning forward to kiss hers, which leads to more kissing and more panting and more blood rushing. I pull away.
‘Have you ever—’
I put my hand gently over her mouth. ‘You’re being evil. Have you had sex?’
She nods.
‘With that guy we ran into? Your ex?’
‘Yes.’
‘So you’re not one of those no-sex-before-marriage Christians?’
Sojourner sits up straight. ‘Che, did you listen to the sermons? You know when you were in church with me and there were people, including my mom, talking up front? You hear any of that?’
‘Honestly? No. I was thinking about how close your thigh was to mine, about how wonderful it felt holding your hand, how close our mouths were every time I turned to look at you. I didn’t hear a word.’
She laughs. ‘Then you missed an excellent takedown of purity culture. Sex is not a sin. Sex is love. The sin is not in having sex, the sin is in having sex without love – that can happen within wedlock as well as without. I just quoted from the sermon you didn’t listen to.’
I’m staring at her again. She’s said the words sex and love. My mouth has gone dry.
‘You’ve really never had sex?’
‘No.’
‘Ha! That’s wild. Here’s me, a nice Christian girl, and I’m not a virgin. Here’s you, an atheist, and you are.’
I’m about to unleash my rant about how being an atheist doesn’t say anything about a person except that they don’t believe in God, but I stop myself. ‘Are atheists supposed to be promiscuous? Bummer. I’ve failed.’
‘I think it’s sweet. I think you’re sweet.’
‘Sweet’s not good, is it? How about hot instead? Can’t you say you think I’m hot instead of sweet?’
‘You want me to say you’re hot?’
I nod. ‘I think you’re hot and we’ve spent the last—’ I look at my watch. ‘Fuck. More than an hour all over each other.’
‘You’re hot, Che. You swear too much, you’re going to hell, but your kisses are hot.’ She puts her hand on the band of my trackpants, then trails her fingers up. ‘Your stomach is hot. Your chest is hot. The line of your throat is hot.’ She presses her lips against mine again. ‘Kissing you is hot.’
We kiss, hard and passionate, then she pulls away.
‘But I have to get home. We have to get home.’
She stands up. I pull my T-shirt down so it hangs over my groin. Sojourner smirks.
‘Sojourner, come home with me.’
‘I love the way you say my name. No one else says it like that. I’m glad you don’t call me Sid.’
‘Was that a yes?’
‘That was an I don’t know. You’re an atheist. I don’t know what dating you would mean. I need to go home and think and sleep and study – I have exams and a fight coming up, and yeah, I don’t know what this is, but I like it. You’re not like anyone else.’
I shake my head, trying to clear it. ‘You neither.’
She holds her hand out, strokes my cheek. I feel it all the way to my dick.
‘Good night, Che.’
I shake my head. ‘I’m walking you home. Again.’
‘Okay,’ Sojourner says, holding my hand, leaning into me. ‘I can live with that.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
I can’t sleep. My brain won’t stop thinking about Sojourner, replaying our kisses in the park. The feel of her hand at my waistband. I masturbate. I still can’t sleep.
I wash up and call Georgie.
Her hair’s cut even shorter than last time. The sides are shaved. She looks happy. I tell her about Sojourner and Rosa. Mostly about Sojourner. Georgie tells me about her and Nazeem, unable to keep from grinning. She’s glad I told Leilani about Rosa. She tells me to enjoy whatever it is I have with Sojourner, to stop worrying about whether it’s a thing or not. She’s right.
I finally get sleepy. I say goodbye, crawl into bed. I’m about to slide under when I hear giggling from Rosa’s room.
I knock on her door. More giggling, and the sounds of hasty cleaning-up.
Rosa opens the door and yawns. Seimone is under the covers pretending to be asleep, but her mouth keeps twitching. I forgot she was sleeping over.
‘It’s after three. Stop being loud.’
‘Sorry,’ Rosa says, letting off a peal of fake giggles. ‘Seimone was being too funny.’
‘Stop being funny, Seimone.’
Seimone sits up, grinning. Her eyes glisten with the tears of her suppressed laughter. ‘I’ll try.’
‘Goodnight, girls,’ I say as Rosa heads back to bed and crawls in.
‘Goodnight, Che,’ they chorus, looking exactly like two innocent friends having a sleepover.
I close the door and go to bed. I’m asleep within minutes.
When I wake up it’s after nine. I lie in bed for a moment thinking about Sojourner’s mouth.
I hear Rosa laugh. Genuine laughter, I can tell, laughter she doesn’t want anyone to hear. Then her laughter cuts off. I pull on my trackpants and sprint downstairs.
Seimone is slumped forward on the island, her face on its side, her nose running, her eyes swollen shut. She’s turning blue, not enough oxygen in her blood. Rosa stands next to her, staring, an auto-injector in her hand.
I grab it from her. The cap is already off. I stab Seimone’s thigh through her pants, holding it down for a ten-count, hoping that’s right, that I haven’t hit a vein. I pull it out, drop it on the counter, rubbing her leg where I injected her.
Her eyes open a little. They’re too swollen to open all the way. She gasps, then starts coughing. Her hands go to her chest.
We all watched the vid. We practised with a dummy injector. The McBrunights don’t let Seimone spend time with people who don’t how to use one.
Rosa’s not laughing now – she’s screaming.
Seimone needs medical help. I press 00, then realise where I am before I hit the final 0. I punch out 911.
‘What is the nature of your emergency?’
‘She’s in anaphylaxis. I used the auto-injector. Yes. She’s breathing.’
Sally and David emerge from their study.
‘What’s…?’ Sally begins. She rushes to Seimone.
David enfolds Rosa in his arms.
I keep answering the operator’s questions, confirm our address.
Sally’s holding Seimone, telling her everything will be all right. Seimone nods. ‘I’m fine,’ she says. ‘It’s like nothing happened.’
She doesn’t look fine. Her face is pinched, red, her eyes swollen, she’s filmed with sweat. She smiles at Rosa.
David lets go of Rosa, pulls out his phone and calls the McBrunights. Rosa hugs Seim
one. Seimone returns it with one arm.
My sister almost killed someone.
Rosa knew Seimone was allergic to peanuts. There’s two glasses on the island filled with a gross-looking smoothie and the blender’s in the sink. Rosa must have put peanut butter in it. She said she wouldn’t kill anyone unless she could get away with it.
Rosa stood there and watched Seimone losing consciousness from an allergic reaction. She stood there with the injector in her hand, and she laughed.
After the ambulance is gone – Seimone and Sally with it – Rosa bursts into tears and rushes up to her room. David goes after her.
I text Leilani: —Seimone was talking. Her colour already looks normal.
My heart’s beating too fast. I walk over to the windows, look down at the avenue. I can hear sirens. Someone else’s emergency. Seimone’s ambulance didn’t turn on its siren.
‘Rosa wants you, Che,’ David says. ‘She’s pretty upset.’
He hugs me. ‘Thanks for what you did. We’re proud of you. Thank God for auto-injectors, eh?’
I nod. I can’t believe what Rosa did. I look at the blender in the sink. The remaining sludge in it is brown.
I don’t want to talk to Rosa. But David is waiting for me to go up to my sister’s room and comfort her.
‘She needs you,’ he says.
How can he not know?
I climb the stairs. What am I going to say?
‘She didn’t die,’ Rosa says as I close the door behind me. My phone is set to record in my pocket. ‘I was about to use the injector.’
She’s sitting cross-legged on her bed, no trace of tears on her cheeks. I sit on her desk chair, turning it to face her.
‘It’s not my fault.’ She sounds as if she’s saying she didn’t eat the last biscuit. Not as if an eleven-year-old girl almost died.
The anger that flares in me is so intense I have to close my eyes and put my hands behind my back.
I wish Rosa were dead.
More than I’ve ever wished it. If she were gone, Seimone wouldn’t have almost died. Who knows what else the world would be saved from.
My hands are shaking. I concentrate on slowing my breathing, on not letting anger control me.
My Sister Rosa Page 23