Page 115 of Shortcake
They danced in front of my eyes, swirling around each other.
They didn’t feel right.
Being sisters wasn’t just a blood test. It wasn’t just something you found on a piece of paper. Sisterhood was a lifestyle.
Delete, delete, delete.
Hey. I’m Addy. I know you’ve been chatting with my brothers lately and I thought I’d introduce myself, too.
My brothers. Not our brothers.
Shit.
Delete.
Hey. I’m Addy. I thought maybe we could chat a little here and get to know each other?
I gulped, examining the words. Sure, they weren’t particularly warm. But honestly, it was the best I could do right now, given the circumstances.
A lukewarm start was better than no start at all, right?
The lump in my throat widened, growing from golf ball sized to softball sized as I pushed my thumb into the send button.
Then, I did the worst thing humanly possible. I looked through her photos.
I social media stalked her.
Dumb, dumb, dumb.
The first few photos were just of her out and about in New York City, hanging with some other girlfriends. Holding up martini glasses. Ringing in the new year.
Then a couple of her with a guy that I assumed was a boyfriend.
I scrolled and stalked untilblam. A picture of her with my dad.
I literally hadn’t seen his face in years. In all this time, I didn’t bother looking back at photos of him. I had no desire to reminisce about the man who left us.
But the moment I saw his face, I knew it was him. It was amazing how quickly you can recognize someone you haven’t seen in twenty-two years.
There wasn’t a lot about him that looked like me or my brothers. We got our bright green eyes from Mom. My face shape was all Mom. Noses,Mom. But my hair… my fire engine red hair… that was all Dad. And I was the only child of his that had it. Not even Hope got that recessive trait.
Everyone assumed this color was from a bottle… but it wasn’t. I just preferred to let people believe that. I wanted people to think it was fake.
That was better than anyone knowing the truth, in my opinion.
Even my brothers assumed I colored it to amplify the red, despite the fact that I’d had this bright red hair all through childhood. I think since they had blonde hair as kids, all of which faded to a darker brown, they just assumed mine had faded in vibrancy too—and in turn, I colored it to bring back its vibrancy.
I let everyone believe that. I even lied and told people I dyed it, too. Because I didn’t want to claim any part of Rick Evans. Not even the hair color, which I loved so much.
My computer pinged at me and a chatbox opened up with Hope’s picture in the top left corner and a blinking green dot next to the cute, smiling photo of herself.
I yelped and ducked, my base instinct of hiding jumping in. Then, slowly, I peered up at the laptop screen.
It was ridiculous. Iknewshe couldn’t see me. We weren’t video chatting. Hell, I didn’t even have my camera turned on.
Taking the deepest, most calming breath I could, I peeked at the screen.
Hey, it said.
