Page 76 of Her Sloth

Do I trust her enough?

The woman who stares angrily at me, with eyes that flicker like the dangerous waves of an untamed ocean.

Goosebumps spread over my arms just from the way she looks at me. The way she stands there so present, dangerously daring…then she bites her lips.

My chest feels too small for the air I need in my lungs.

It’s fucking stupid what’s happening in my body simply because she looks at me.

I need air, need to breathe

I storm out of the house, past her, forcefully bumping into her with my shoulder.

Through the door and slam it behind me.

She got under my skin.

Elise’s sister⁠—

I stumble onto the yard as I realize what is happening.

It’s raining, heavily.

Breathe, I tell myself.

I stand in the middle of the yard between all our cars with the rain pelting down on me.

The Eleanor stares reproachfully at me, like a visual reminder of the promise I am breaking. It was supposed to be Elise and me, until we die. And now, now I kissed her sister. Her sister who is making me lose my mind every day. Her sister who got under my skin.

My hands tremble.

“What is fucking wrong with you?” asks Addy suddenly behind me.

“Leave me alone,” I say through gritted teeth, desperately trying to hold on to my promise.

“Yeah, no. Not until you tell me what’s really going on.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“It matters very much, because what we are about to do is not just breaking the law by speeding; it’s risky, without a safety net, and I need to know if you’re in the headspace for it.”

I scoff out derogatorily, still with my back to her.

“Suddenly you care about your life?”

“It’s not mine I care about,” she says, walking up to me with every one of her steps splashing from the rain built up on the yard.

“Tell me what’s going on,” she says. She is so close now; I can feel her behind me. I can feel her, because she got under my skin.

Her sister.

“You are her fucking sister!” I roar as I round on her. “We swore to each other till death do us part the day we met. It was her and me against the rest of the world. She was the one who was supposed to be here, and now⁠—“

This time, it’s my eyes that flood with tears, and I am more than thankful for the rain.

“And now, it’s me,” she says, ending what I couldn’t say. “The sister, the one who is everything you ever hated, the one who reminds you of her every day.”

I suck in my lips because I can’t stand the feeling in me as I nod.