Page 149 of Someone Like Me
“Sorry, Tori. Why UT?” I parrot.
The glib smile returns, but she says nothing.
“Tori?”
She makes the turn onto Souvenir Gate, and I give up, let go a sigh, and look out the window. I don’t know what game she’s playing, but I don’t have to be a contestant.
When we pull onto St. Patrick Street, Tori makes the smacking noise of someone who has just heard disappointing news.
“I think you should come in for a little while, so we can talk, Evie.”
I turn to her with a frown. “What? Right now?”
She presses her lips into what’s supposed to pass for a regretful simper, and nods. “Yes, right now. I’m afraid I have some bad news.”
Alarm tingles down my spine. Whatever this is about, it isn’t good. I hesitate. “Can we get together later? I have a class in the park and—”
“Oh, no,” she says, shaking her head. I swear, she sounds like a Disney villain. “I don’t think you’d want to wait to hear this.”
Shit.
I swallow a cold knot in my throat. What the hell is she up to?
She pulls into the driveway and kills the engine. Tori turns to me with a frightening smile. “Well, are you going to come in?”
I can taste my heartbeat, metallic with fear. “What’s this about, Tori?”
Tori tilts her head to the side, giving me an almost pitying smile. “Oh, I think you know.”
And I do know. Somehow, without her saying anything else, I know this is about Drew. And whatever it is, it’s bad.
“Let’s go inside, shall we?” She’s out of the car before I can reply. I have to make my limbs move. My hands and feet prickle with pins and needles, and my mouth is completely dry. My tongue seems to have swollen in mere seconds.
I try to swallow as I slip out of the car. Panic tells me to run. Run for help. But I don’t even know what I’d be running from. I force myself to breathe the way I teach my students to. To clear my head. To figure out what’s going on so I can take action.
Like a zombie, I follow my sister inside our parents’ house. She closes the door behind me and takes her time hanging up her jacket and purse. Removing mine is out of the question. I need whatever protection I can get.
Tori leaves the foyer for the living room, and I follow. She gestures toward Mom’s pristine, cream white Bridgewater sofa, and, mechanically, I perch on one of its stiff cushions. My hands are shaking, so I rest them on my knees.
Taking a seat at the other end of the sofa, Tori regards me with a smug smile. “You’re going to break up with Drew Moroux.”
Her words knock the fear right out of me. How ridiculous. “No. I’m not.”
She bats her eyelashes, her smile never wavering. “I think you will.”
“Never.” I shake my head. “I love him.”
Her lips stay stretched across her face, but at my words, something in her expression hardens. She may be smiling at me, but I see hatred in her eyes.
“I’m sorry you think you’re in love with a criminal,” she says, her nostrils flaring. “That will make hearing what I have to say that much more upsetting, but you’ll thank me in the long run.”
I shake my head. “Tori, there’s nothing you could tell me about Drew that would upset me. I know the man he is. We love each other, and you’re just going to have to accept th—”
Tori springs to her feet, hands balled into fists. “I willnotaccept my sister dating someone who has broken into this house and stolen from me!”
Her words ring in my ears, but I can’t process them.
“What? No, To—“
