Page 91 of So Wild

“I know. I’m sorry.” Nicole lifted a bowl of yogurt and carried it to the kitchen counter.

Sam frowned. It wasn’t like Nicole to be coy about what was upsetting her. “Is everything okay? Is it Aaron?”

“No. He’s not happy about me staying here for another week, though.”

Sam’s longed to say ‘fuck him,’ but she’d promised to be more civil about the lying, cheating cunt. “Sorry to hear that. Is that what’s wrong?”

Nicole pulled a tube of plastic wrap out of the kitchen drawer and stretched a sheet over the yogurt bowl. “I don’t want to talk about it, is that okay?”

“Yeah sure,” Sam said, surprised. “Just uh, know that I’m here if you need me.”

Nicole smiled sadly. “Will you be here if I need you? Or will you be arrested for drawing more lady-parts onto the faces of sleeping men?”

“I promise that was a one-time thing. I’m too close to running a successful business, thanks to you.”

Flattery with the intent to distract had never worked on her sister. Nicole was a perfectionist, but she wasn’t vain. “I mean it, what happened? All you said last night was that you drew on Scott’s face and things are ‘complicated,’ which, I mean, duh. What’s happening? Did he call?”

Sam licked her lips. Blue was what the DaSilvas always called depression, because that was what their mother had called her depression. A sweeter metaphor for debilitating sadness than ‘the black dog’ or ‘the call of the void.’ “I’m not blue.”

“You’re not okay, either. You didn’t eat any of the bribery breakfast.”

“I like how you don’t even bother acting like it’s not a bribe.”

“What would be the point? Come on, just tell me how you’re feeling.”

Sam pictured Scott, lying on his fancy hotel bed, fully clothed with a vagina on his cheek. She remembered him sitting next to her in the police station, tall and pale, saying he didn’t want to press charges. She saw him above her last night, his black eyes locked on hers, asking if she trusted him. “Do you think I’m a suspicious person, like a needlessly distrustful person?”

Nicole’s expression was all she needed, a slight flare of her nostrils and an ‘oh shit what am I going to say’ panic in her eyes. “I…uh…”

“Yes?”

She flashed an apologetic smile. “I don’t think it’s your fault. You’re the oldest, and when mum left, you kind of decided everyone except me, Tabby and Dad were scum.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Okay, you didn’t.” Nicole strode back over to the table and picked up a half empty fruit platter.

Sam watched her go, defensiveness pricking at her insides. “Okay, so maybe I got a bit paranoid after mum left and I wanted to make sure nothing bad happened to us ever again…”

“Realistic.”

“Thanks…and maybe pranking Scott was a part of that, but by the time we graduated I wasn’t like that, anymore.”

“No,” Nicole agreed. “You were a borderline alcoholic who lived to take risks.”

Sam rolled her eyes. “We just turned eighteen!”

“That had nothing to do with it.”

“Then what did?”

“You’re not allowed to get mad at me for saying this, but I’m pretty sure you were just upset about Scott leaving.”

Sam stared at her twin, too surprised to be offended. “What?”

“You were never the same after he left for London. You liked a drink and you liked to go out but once Scott left, you were unstoppable. You just fell into this hole of partying and drinking and dating and trying to have the most fun ever, all the time.”

“And when did I get out of this hole?”

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