Page 131 of The Coldest: Stay Dangerous Part 2

I wave him off, biting back a smile as I leave him in the studio. I can only imagine how he was with his actual sister, since in the short time that we’ve known each other, Red’s become my bodyguard.

When I step off the elevator, there she is, standing behind the glass doors. Her coily hair is brushed and pulled into a bun on the top of her head, showing her slender neck, courtesy of going vegan. She always talked about it–one day giving up meat and dairy. I’d eat a wing in front of her, and put more on her plate, telling her she shouldn’t starve herself. She gave me some lame excuse that Rue is lactose intolerant, like I don’t know her. Like I don’t listen.

Like she’s not part of me.

I nod to the security guard at the desk and he hits the buzzer to unlock the door for me. Auty brushes by me, looking as contrite as she can. I lead her to the small conference room just past the elevators. The table is small, with only five chairs. Locking the door behind us, I take the seat closest to the door as she takes one by the whiteboard.

“Hey, Wynnie.”

My lip pokes, of course. Wynnie is so few and far between these days, and never fails to transport me to a time when it truly was just Auty and I, against the world. Before she met Turkey. Before Summie died, and everything went to shit.

I keep quiet, waiting her out. She can’t stay still, moving her hands from the table to under her thighs. After a moment, she scoffs, and rolls her eyes, earning a smirk from me.

“You’re enjoying this,” she accuses, leaning back in her seat.

“Enjoying what?”

“This! You haven’t returned any of my phone calls. You didn’t come by for Christmas or New Years. What about Deucey?” Her voice raises an octave with every word as her eyes stretch. I bet they’re morphing colors as we speak, undecided between angry green and melancholy blue.

“I’ve talked to Deucey several times–”

“Well, what about me?!”

“Auty,” I chuckle, “you told me I’m dead to you. You don’t talk to dead people, unless you’re psychic and I missed it.”

“See!” Her finger whizzes through the air to point at me. “Right there. You’re enjoying this. You’ve never just done this before, not even when you were out of town. You never just ignored me.”

“Well, you’ve never told me I was dead to you,” I volley. Clearing my throat, my eyes dance all around the room before landing back on her. She flinches, before poising herself to speak again.

It’s the same song and dance. A weak ass apology is coming, followed by us reaffirming that we are sisters and we’ll do better. And I’ll agree, even though most of the time it’s her own fault she got so worked up she felt the need to cut me down until I was an acceptable size for her.

Tiring.

Not conducive at all to this new totally drug and alcohol free lifestyle. Because to say that our volatile relationship doesn’t bother me would be a lie. I meant what I said; I’m a junkie from dealing with her. From holding her together, and for feeling guilty about feeling so free when I did leave her to chase my dreams.

She’s a big part of why I need to feel numb. But those days are over; I feel everything, all the time, and until I came back to the city, I’d been managing. Clearing out all the dust and hatred between myself and Rico helped, and you know, changing addictions of course.

Being back in the belly of the best, I keep that gum on me. My new building has a gym that I stay in, too. But ignoring Auty hasn’t given me the peace I foolishly thought it would provide.

Though it is nice she didn’t take no for an answer. Usually her ego leaves her to stew way longer.

“You know I didn’t mean that,” she whispers, snatching my attention back.

She meant it. Maybe not toward me, but definitely toward Rico, and that fact hangs heavy in her silence.

A fact with implications we’ll have to cover later. Right now, there’s something more pressing. I pull up my proverbial big girl granny panties and push away all the warnings firing off for me to leave well enough alone.

“Were you listening to what I said, or were you too focused on trying to beat me up?”

“Wynnie, I’ve never–”

“Auty. I’m serious. Do you remember what I told you?” It’s unfair to ask, since bits and pieces are lost on me. But I know for certain I told her things I never did before.

She blinks, averting her eyes as her arms fold and her hands rub her bare upper arms. “You said… you said we were both left behind.” Our gazes lock. “But, Wynnie. How is that true? I mean, yeah they’d go off for some weekends, but you made it seem like they were gone for months–”

“Auty.”

She stammers, before her eyebrows pull. Now it’s my turn to sit back.