Page 29 of Petals and Plot Twists
“See?” Mom says, looking at Sophie. “This is the main reason I feel okay about moving and leaving Peter here all alone. Whenever I think about it, and I start to worry, I just think to myself: he’ll still have Sophie. Sophie has always taken care of him.”
“And you know I always will,” Sophie says, then she gives my mom another hug.
Will she, though? If Sophie’s dating plan works and she falls in love with someone else, our relationship will have to change. I wonder if that thought keeps her up at night like it does me.
Mom leads us into the kitchen, where lunch is already waiting for us. Homemade chicken salad, fresh croissants, fruit. And Allison’s favorite brownies. In preparation for the move, Allison already moved out of her apartment, and she’s been living with Mom and Dad ever since.
I hold up a brownie. “Where’s Allison?” I ask before taking a bite.
“She and your father went to the hardware store to get some putty to patch the walls. They should be back any minute.”
“How’s she doing?” Sophie asks.
“Better every day,” Mom says. “She hasn’t mentioned Chase in a week, at least.”
I grumble at the thought of my little sister’s ex-fiancé. He’s the one reason I’m glad Allison is moving to South Carolina. She needs a fresh start where there’s no risk of her ever running into his sorry, cheating?—
“That makes me really happy,” Sophie says, cutting off my wayward thoughts. “She deserves so much better.”
“I do, don’t I?”
We all turn to see Allison coming in the door from the garage. Sophie squeals and stands up, rushing over to give Allison an enormous hug. Only a year younger than us, Allison always looked up to Sophie. By the time we graduated from high school, the two of them were almost as close as Sophie and me.
“You deserve the world,” Sophie says. “I hope I run into that pig of a man just so I can kick him in the shins for you.”
“Don’t do it,” Allison says. “He’s not worth the bruised toe.”
When Sophie finally lets her go, I stand and pull my little sister into an embrace. “Hey, Allie,” I say. “Good to see you. How’s the South Carolina job hunt going?”
“I have a virtual interview on Monday,” she says, “and it’s the final one. Seems like a good firm.”
“That’s good news,” I say.
“Yeah, I think so. How about you?” She looks over at Sophie with a smirk. “Have you two fallen in love yet?”
My gut tightens, but Sophie only rolls her eyes and laughs. This has been a running joke for years now. Growing up, Allison always talked about wanting Sophie as an actual, for real sister, and the two of us getting married was the obvious way for that to happen. Every time she saw us together, she’d make some kind of joke, suggesting we try different romantic dates to take our relationship to the next level. Stargazing. Ice-skating. Horse-drawn carriage rides. The longer the joke went on, the more elaborate her suggestions became.
“Sorry, Allison,” Sophie says. “Your parents are just going to have to adopt me the old-fashioned way.”
“You’re already one of us,” Mom says, raising her glass to Sophie. “You know that.”
Dad steps into the kitchen next, and we go through the same thing. Hugs all around. Greetings and questions for Sophie that are just as thorough as the ones asked of me.
She reallyisa part of us.
More than anyone else whoisn’tus.
After lunch, Sophie and I head up to my room. It’s mostly packed up, but the closet is still full of LEGO bricks, enormous bins sorted by size, shape, and color stacked from the floor to the ceiling.
“Wow,” Sophie says. “You really don’t have room for all these.”
“Do I even need to keep them?” I say. “I have the assembled sets. What do I need these for?”
“They’re probably worth something,” Sophie says. “And you might have kids one day. What kid wouldn’t love this collection?”
I tug open the top drawer of one of the plastic storage units on the left side of the closet. It’s filled with instruction manuals for unbuilt models, the ones I didn’t have space to display in my room.
It’s stupid to feel emotional over LEGO bricks. They’re just toys. Building blocks. But when I was a kid, they got me through a lot of lonely years. The thing is, I didn’t really know I was lonely until Sophie blasted her way into my life and showed me what it feels like to have a friend.
