Page 16 of Tell Me When It's Over

She’s glowing. Carefree. Smiling. Laughing. All the things I want her to never stop doing or being. This Lenny is the one I want to see win at life, no matter what life throws at her. And I know she will, even if there’s doubt settled into the back of her mind that tries to hold her back.

When I least expect it, she jumps on me, her body latching onto my back and making me drop the controller onto the ground. “What are you doing?” I bellow, my lungs hurting from how hard I’m laughing at her tactic.

And she says I’m the cheater.

Her long legs wrap around my torso as she giggles, her character passing the finish line. She goes to cheer, her hands thrown in the air in victory, when I shift to the side and watch her tumble forward. I think I can stop her from eating carpet, but only manage to pull myself down with her. Falling into a heap on the floor, half on her, half beside her, we both start cracking up.

“You cheated,” I tell her, lifting myself up to glance at her unabashed expression as she flops onto her back. “Where was the girl who used to read the game instructions online?”

She grins, sitting up on her elbows. “Like I said, Kyler Bishop, people change.”

This time when I look at her, I see a girl I haven’t before. Aged. Wiser. More confident. I don’t know where the old Lenny is who would lecture Mia and I when we were sore losers after losing at board games, or how playing fair is the only way to claim a real victory if one of us tried bending the rules. Clearly, that girl is long gone, and in her place is one biting her bottom lip and watching me with a tilted head.

“Ky?”

I hum, but all I can look at is the way her top teeth nibble into her bottom lip. It’s fuller. Still makeup free. Chapped. All Lenny, but somehow…not.

Her legs go to move from under mine where we’re tangled on the floor, and I eventually move away so she can get up. “As much as I want to beat you at another round, I should probably finish unpacking.”

I want to tell her to stay down here. Play the game so I can watch her smile. Listen to her trash talk and try to distract me.

Be with me.

But I don’t do any of those things, because suddenly it doesn’t feel like the reason is the same it would have been six years ago.

“Yeah,” I murmur. “That’s probably a good idea.”

Brushing off her clothes, she looks down at me with a softness on her face. “I’ve missed this.”

My answer is instant. “Me too.”

“Game night tomorrow?” she asks.

I manage to grin. “You’re on but prepare yourself. I won’t let you distract me this time.”

Biggest lie ever.

Chapter Five

Kyler / Age 19

Mia swats my chest and gives me an amused smirk as we pull away from the door where we’re lurking. “Quit glaring at her. She’s going to think you hate her, and I happen to think she’s lovely.”

I cross my arms over my chest and counter, “Which one? The gold digger or the gold digger’s daughter?” I feel a little bad for saying it, but ever since the two showed up, Harry has been worse than normal. Snappy. Pale. Irate. If they’re who they say they are, then he has nobody but himself to blame.

“Come on, Ky,” my sister chastises. I’m not sure if it’s because she’s always been the mother hen or just because she likes our father squirming, but for some reason she’s taken a liking to the lovely pre-teen sitting at the table with her mother, Harry, and a few lawyers. “If the papers are right, she’s our sister.”

“Half-sister,” I correct begrudgingly. I’m being a dick, but it isn’t unwarranted. At least, not to me. While my sister dreams of everything she can do with our new family addition, all I can wonder is what’s in it for them.

Her eyes roll. “Whatever. I mean, Ben wouldn’t even bother to see them if he didn’t think the paperwork was legit. You know him. Plus, she kind of looks like Dad. Look at her.”

I am looking. She’s not totally wrong. The girl, Leighton, does share some signature features of the Bishops, but they’re basic enough that it isn’t solid proof. Nobody in our family has curly hair, and unless her mother styles hers the way she does, it doesn’t come from her either. “I think they could be faking it. Her mother looks like she’s full of shit.”

“True,” agrees my usually argumentative big sis, “but really look at Leighton. She’s uncomfortable, like this is the last place she wants to be. And if what you told me is right, she had no idea who Harry was when they showed up.”

My eyes go back to the room, where Leighton stares into her lap and avoids all eye contact with Benjamin Rockefeller and his partner Eric Gurney, Harry’s attorneys. Her mom, whose name I couldn’t care less about at the moment, looks smug as she rattles something off to Harry that’s probably bullshit. The men all stare open-mouthed at her while my possible half-sister flinches.

“What I would do to be a fly on that wall,” Mia whispers, shrugging and walking away from the room. “Come on. I think I saw cookie dough in the fridge downstairs.”

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