Page 40 of Mace

“I don’t have anything to say to you,” Ivy replies, her back to me.

“You disappeared for three days. I had no idea if you were okay. That’s not cool, Ivy.”

She flinches slightly. “I don’t need to run my movements past you.”

“No, you don’t, but it’s the adult thing to do.”

She spins to face me, anger contorting her face into anangry mask. “The adult thing to do is let me live my own life. You just want to control me because your own life is so shitty.”

That stings more than it should, but I deflect her blows as best I can. “That’s not what I’m doing. I’m worried. Link is older, and he’s kind of intense?—”

“You’ve never even dated a guy, Maylie. How can you give me advice on what’s right or wrong in a relationship? How would you even know?”

Ivy and I have always been close. The situation we found ourselves in demanded it. Neither of us had a mother anymore. She was a young girl who needed that guidance more than anyone, and I was grieving the life we lost. It hurts to see how she has pulled away from me, and that I didn’t even notice. I was so caught up in working and keeping things running and ticking along. I really fucked this up.

“You’re right. I’ve never had a relationship, but that doesn’t mean I’m ignorant to what a healthy one should be. You’re neglecting your responsibilities because of this man, and don’t get me started on what he said to me about owning you.” I stand, moving to her and grabbing her hand. I expect her to tear out of my grasp, but to my relief, she doesn’t. “Ivy, I’m really scared for you. This guy doesn’t seem like he has his heart in the right place.”

Am I any better? Mace is part of a criminal gang. I watched him smash a guy’s face open and didn’t do anything to stop it.

“You don’t know him,” she says with defiance in her tone.

“No, I don’t, because you’ve never brought himaround. You hid him from us, which now I understand why.”

“I didn’t hide him.” She pulls out of my grasp, and I hate the loss of her touch. The chasm between us continues to widen. “I just knew you’d be like this about it.”

“Like what? Concerned? You don’t think I have any reason to be a little worried by any of this? How old even is he?”

“What difference does that make? I love him.”

That makes me flinch.She loves him?My heart thuds. This is worse than I thought. “How old, Ivy?” I repeat more firmly this time.

“He’s thirty-two,” she admits begrudgingly.

Oh… my… fuck. He’s fifteen years older than my teenage sister, and she loves him. “Don’t you see a problem with that?”

“And you wonder why I didn’t come home.”

She throws her hands in the air in exasperation, and I catch a glimpse of something on her arm. I shove her sleeve up and see the dirty-looking bruise in the shape of finger marks. She’d flinched when I grabbed her there. She’d cried out in pain. My stomach knots, and the pit in my gut opens like a gaping wound.

“Did I do that to you? When I grabbed you?” Horror descends through me that I might have hurt her.I wasn’t that rough, was I?I try to think back.

She tears out of my grasp. “I’m done talking about this.”

“Ivy, did I give you that bruise?” Guilt assaults me, choking my throat.

“Just leave me alone,” she hisses in my face, and myheart clenches as she shoves around me, knocking me back against the counter.

I stumble after her, my mind reeling, but she’s through the front door and gone before I can stop her.

Bile climbs up my throat. I’m going to be sick.

Rushing into the bathroom, I drop to my knees just in time to empty my stomach. Heaving over and over, even though all I have inside me is coffee, my body tries to repel the disgust I feel.

I hurt my sister.

I hug the toilet bowl until I’m done, and then I stand on shaky legs. I can’t look at myself in the mirror over the sink as I wipe my face and clean my teeth. No wonder she wants to be with him—I practically shoved her into his arms.

There’s a knock on the front door, and hope surges in me that it might be Ivy, that she’s forgotten her key.

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