Page 3 of Cruel Cravings

My sister has always been thoughtful. When we were kids, she let me lick the cake batter off the spoon when we used to bake.

I step into the apartment to find stacks and stacks of boxes in the living room. A frown crawls onto my face as I step over and read the labels.

“Taviar,” I mumble. “Is that your boyfriend?”

She was never popular with boys. I never was either.

We were never popular with anyone.

But at least we had each other.

I move on from the boxes that make the apartment feel like a warehouse more than ever, to the kitchen area, where I find unwashed dishes and a trashcan that needs to be emptied. My tongue clicks as I shake my head and then pry open the fridge.

Takeout containers and more takeout containers.

We’ll have to figure out a chore system. Or maybe this Taviar can learn to clean up after himself.

The apartment’s spacious and big. Almost too much room.

I make it to the hallway and discover there’s three bedrooms. One door’s locked and the second bedroom’s entirely empty.

The third’s cordoned off with neon yellow caution tape. I stop just outside and peer into the room at the unmade bed and mood board hanging on the wall.

This is it. This is her room.

I’d recognize it anywhere. Pick it out of a police-style lineup.

I know my sister better than anyone. Even this Taviar she lives with or the girl that’s plastered in many of the photos in her room.

“Imani,” I read aloud.

She’s never told me anything about someone named Imani. I’m her sister. Her best friend.

Moving onto the rest of the room, I admire all the eclectic things that make me smile and remind me of how similar we can be. She has a stack of self-help books that she uses as a perch for snacks. Oreos and Hot Cheetos are still some of her favorites.

There’s a strange leather cat mask on her desk but I ignore it in favor of the fading stickers on the back of her laptop.

My sister was always the more creative of the two of us. She was a musical genius from the time we were young. I can still hear the trill of the piano in my mind when I close my eyes and concentrate on the past.

Our mother used to make her practice for five, six hours a day.

Sometimes my sister wound up in tears, begging for it to end. I did my best to keep her company. I tried to make her laugh. If our mother didn’t shoo me away first.

Musicians needed to practice, she said. Musicians didn’t need nosy little girls butting in where they didn’t belong.

I wasn’t like them. I wasn’t a musician.

So I learned to watch from afar, fascinated by every note that rang through our home.

My arms stretch out and scoop the laptop with the stickers off her desk. Hugging the device to my chest brings an instant warm shot of comfort. I’m not sure why other than maybe the keys remind me of her piano. Her fast-moving fingers.

Always practically a blur.

Why couldn’t I move mine like that? Why couldn’t I play pretty songs?

“Who the hell are you?”

The voice cuts my unraveling thoughts short. My eyes snap open. I turn around with the laptop still hugged to my chest, my expression vacant.

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