Page 121 of Stolen Fate
Evelyn
I didn’t getthe chance to pick Emilia up from the airport, because her flight landed at the same time Elliot was due to get out of school, and after all that Elliot had been through, I didn’t want to disrupt his routine any more than I had to.
Jerry went to pick her up instead, and by the time Simon dropped Elliot and me off at home, Emilia was already waiting at the house.
She flew right into my arms as soon as I opened the door, and her incoherent babble was the only sound in the room for a while.
I laughed and wrapped my arms around my little sister’s slight figure, pulling her in close to me. She buried her face into my neck awkwardly, only because she was so much taller than me, but I didn’t say anything, I just held onto her tightly.
I had missed this; missed her.
We had been close before she went to Bowing’s, despite our age difference, and it felt like I hadn’t talked to her in years.
Which was probably true. I didn’t think I had told her anything personal about me since she left, but that was probably because nothing much had changed or happened in the past six years, and the one big thing, I couldn’t tell her.
It was probably a good thing that she was visiting, that we were out of Massachusetts, and that I could reconnect with my baby sister again.
“How are you, brat? How’s work going?”
“I’m good. Work is okay.”
“Just okay?”
She shrugged. “The dancers at Boston’s Dancing Stars aren’t as committed or serious about dancing as the kids at Bowing’s. It gets a little frustrating at times when I have to remind them to practice, to take this seriously, and what not. Sometimes, it feels like I’m there to babysit instead of teach them.”
“Are you going to stay there?”
She shot me a sheepish smile and I narrowed my eyes on her. “I have an ulterior motive for visiting you.”
“Yeah? You mean you’re not here because you miss me?”
“Well, of course I missed you,” she said, her eyes brightening. My breath caught a little at the sight. She looked so much like our mother the older she got. Sometimes, it felt like I was looking at a younger version of my mom. I resisted the urge to look away.
“So why are you actually in New York?”
“Well, I have an interview to be a choreographer at The School of Ballet this Monday for their upcoming production of Giselle.”
My expression changed a little. I was surprised and really happy for her. “Are you serious? That’s huge! Wait, does Dad know?”
She shook her head. “Not yet. I didn’t tell anyone but you. I don’t want to get his hopes up when I might not get picked. Not when there are thirty other choreographers competing for the same spot.”
“Well, of course you would get picked. You’re brilliant.”
She shrugged off my compliment, but I could tell she was pleased with that. “We’ll see.”
“Yes, we will. I know you’ll do great.”
“You know what this means, don’t you? If I get this, then I get to move to New York. We get to live in the same state again. Isn’t that great?”
She didn’t wait for my response, but instead pulled me in for a tight hug. I hugged her back, though I didn’t say anything. Selfishly I wondered if having her so close would affect me. I had only begun entertaining the idea of being happy again. I didn’t know if her being here would change that. If it would bring up the past, when I would much rather keep things the way they were.
“Do you think Dad will be okay with two of his daughters moving so far away?” I asked. I didn’t like the thought that Dad was there in that big house with only Ethan to care for him.
“It’ll be fine. You need to stop worrying so much about everyone. It’s been years since the accident, and Dad is not helpless.”
“I know that,” I said defensively. I knew our dad wasn’t helpless. It was just hard not to worry about him. I had been the only one to witness his breakdown after the injury, and so soon after Mom’s passing.
Things were getting better, but it was hard to reconcile the image I had of my dad before, as the man I had always considered to be the strongest man in the world, to the man I had seen after, when he had broken down so completely that I didn’t know what to do.
