Chapter Sixteen

When waking up, it was to a familiar green apple scent. While it had me confused the last time, this time around it was half expected and more than welcomed. Not even opening my eyes yet I could tell you a few things. It was a cold and wet day, as the rain pattered against the window. My head wasn't on a pillow, but a warm and soft surface of skin that systematically rose and fell like someone was rocking me back to sleep. There were arms wrapped around me, engulfing me into a fuzzy haze of listening to a heartbeat instead of the horrible weather outside.

When moving my legs to find a patch of cool quilt, my legs were stiff. That's when the fabric of the jeans tightened uncomfortably. That's right. I'd fallen asleep before I could change out of my clothes. As expected, when I finally opened my eyes, the clouds were grey, and the rain was misty and continuous yet soft as a feather against the glass. Lifting my head slightly, I peeked up at Sabrina who was still fast asleep, lips parted in her deep slumber. While peaceful then, when she woke up, her head would be in a world of pain. She was definitely more than drunk last night.

Anna was telling the truth. I died from the clingy-cute overload.

Shit. Anna.

Reluctantly I slipped out of bed and fixed the quilt, so it covered Sabrina properly and headed out of the house, over the fence and straight up into my bedroom where Anna was passed out as well. I felt her forehead with the back of my hand, and while clammy, she was a reasonable temperature, meaning if she had a shower, she should've been that more refreshed.

After getting changed into more comfortable clothes, sweatpants and a t-shirt, and washing my face and teeth, I left Anna a note explaining that I was at her house, cleaning up the mess that was leftover from the party. What a mess it was. And boy was it worse than last time. There was bottles, cans, cups, food, and a much stronger smell of alcohol than the last time around and I was assuming it was because I didn't drink this time around that I could actually smell it. Before starting any cleanup, I made my way back upstairs with a bottle of water and headache tablets for when Sabrina woke up and left them by the bedside locker.

First I got a bunch of bin bags, designating them a spot in each room of the house and then got to work filling them with rubbish and when finished with a room, I opened the vents above the windows and the windows themselves a smidge to ventilate the house. Not stopping there, I sprayed the halls with this citrus smelling spray and even lit a candle in each room on the mantels of each window.

It was at least two hours before I was done, avoiding outside in the garden because it was raining. It was the least I could do for Anna since I hadn't visited her once throughout the night. I tiptoed back up the stairs and peeked into Sabrina's room who was now sat up still under the covers in the bed, rubbing her eyes with messy bedhead.

"Sam?" Sabrina's rubbed her palm against her forehead as if that would soothe her pain. "What time is it? Are you wearing one of Anna's cleaning gloves?"

"It's like, nine o'clock and yes, I guess I am." The gloves made a snapping sound as they were pulled off. "There's pain killers there for you . . . Do you want tea?"

Not hesitating, she gulped back the tablets and flopped onto her back, head hitting the pillow. "I'm a horrible host. Anna. Shit. I'm a horrible sister too."

"She's okay. I went over to her a while ago. Look, I even left my curtains open a crack so you can peek in."

"Are you real?"

"I hope so," I said. "Is that a yeah to tea then?"

"Pretty please?"

"Sure." It was the second time seeing her little tea set up and this time I could actually see it. It was like being in a hotel, with two cups, a mini black kettle and a cute container for the teabags. She even had a water dispenser in the corner of her room. "I'm very jealous of your set up, just so you know."

"Why be jealous when you can use it?"

"Seriously. That must've cost a fortune."

"A birthday present from Anna."

"I guess I'll enjoy it while I can," I said and brought her over the tea and placed it on the matt on her bedside locker.

"You're not leaving, are you?" Sabrina clasped the cup in her hand and avoided eye contact, concentrating on blowing the steam from her cup. "Would it be strange if I ask you to stay? I'm not expecting anything . . . We can watch something? I don't know. Having you stay awhile. Strange or not?"

My cheeks started to strain from me, forcing them to refuse my smile. "You're asking me to hang out? Since when do we do that?"

She glanced at me briefly. "How about starting now?"

"Okay," I agreed and grabbed her laptop from her desk and climbed into the bed with it, staying on top of the covers, and I stretched out.

"Get under here, weirdo," she demanded, lifting the portion of the cover on top of her.

"I feel like you're still drunk."

"About that. I'm sorry about last night. I can get a little . . ."

"Clingy?"

"Yeah," she whispered.

"At one point, you thought you were cuddling me naked."

"I remember." Sabrina scoffed at herself and nodded to the laptop. "Anything, in particular, you want on?"

"How about Brooklyn Nine-Nine?"

She clicked on to it, and the catchy theme song came on. "Good idea. We can learn what not to do."

I finally got beneath the bed covers and sank into the warmth once again, feeling much better this time because my face was washed and I was no longer wearing those damn tight jeans. "Oh, you need instructions on how not to fall in love with me and marry me?"

Sabrina's head leaned on my shoulder. "You took care of Anna, cleaned the house and took care of me. It's you that needs to watch this."

"She's my best friend," I defended.

"And the house?"

"I'm a polite guest," I said. "Plus you took care of me. I wanted to thank you."

"Whatever you say, Sam."

"You're so annoying." As the words slipped out of my mouth, she shamelessly tangled our legs together and snuggled in closer to me. "How do you explain this?"

"I'm still hopelessly drunk and out of my mind."

"Alright, Sabrina."

"Shh . . . It's starting."

For some reason though my focus wasn't on the blurred screen as memories of the night before rummaged through my mind. Parker, behind Sabrina, them dancing in a cool swaying sort of way. They had fun. It was my own damn fault having turned down Sabrina's offer in the first place, but my chest was searing, and if I could look down, it was probably turning green. The dark and ugly thoughts washed away when Sabrina's hand slid up and rested on my chest.

Even then, my focus didn't return to the show. It was alright because I'd watched it so many times before that it was easy to jump back into. This time, instead of focusing on the party, I stared at the picture frame beside the empty cup on her bedside locker. Sometimes I'd totally forgot that both Anna and Sabrina were adopted and that they weren't related by blood. But seeing a much younger Sabrina, as a child with her birth mom offered a reminder. She never talked about her.

Sabrina noticed my zoned out state, and as she turned, she asked, "What are you looking at?"

"The picture of you and your mom," I said as she picked up the frame and returned to her original position on the bed.

"It was taken on my tenth birthday. My last birthday with her."

"She's beautiful."

"She was," she agreed voice cracking ever so slightly. "She won the crown at her school. That's what she used to call it. Only 'the crown'. I always thought she was a fairy-tale character in secret. That's all she is now, a fairy-tale and a memory."

Maybe that's why she wanted to be prom queen so badly; as a way to be close to her mom. But it was the wrong time, and I was the wrong person to point that out to her if she hadn't realized it yet. Instead of saying anything, I let her lean her head against my chest and ran my fingers through her hair. From her little sighs, she was content enough with that.

Then she snorted and said, "I'm more of a fairy-tale villain."

"Villains are always complex characters, the more real characters," I pointed out.

"That's true. I'm not bad. I'm complicated."

"It's all about perspective."

She smiled up at me, placing her hand on my cheek. "Can I kiss you?"

Not responding verbally, I nodded slowly while we maintained eye contact. As she placed her lips on mine, the door to the room burst open with a zombie-like Anna who stopped in her tracks, took in our positions and proceeded to vomit into the bin by the chest of drawers right beside the bedroom door.

Sabrina reacted by jumping off me and clenching her eyes shut, leaving me to be the one to hold Anna's hair back and rub circles onto her back as she threw her guts up.

When she was done, I got her tissue from the bathroom in the next room over and wiped her face as she slumped to the ground against the chest of drawers, panting and looking wildly between Sabrina and me.

Anna vomited at the sight of her sister and best friend kissing.

Cool.

She didn't find it as cool and jabbed her finger into my shoulder and then pointed at Sabrina. "You two are together? And you didn't tell me?"

I grabbed her hand before she could jab me again. "We're not together."

"Our bodies are sometimes though." Sabrina winked and grabbed the bottle of water I'd gotten her earlier and handed it to Anna.

"How long?" Anna accepted the bottle.

"Only a week."

"A week today," Sabrina added. "Happy one week anniversary, Samantha."

"I thought you weren't together?"

"We aren't," we said at the same time. I continued, looking pointedly in Sabrina's direction, "I'm pretty sure she's joking."

"So . . . You're just . . . fooling around?" When we both nodded, she stood up with a little frown on her face. "So when were you guys planning on letting me know?"

"Anna, think about it, is that something you would really want to know?" Sabrina asked.

"Not the details but the situation." Anna's attention stayed on her feet. "I was in the middle of it. I've always been in the middle of it. The buffer. I offered you both advice. And I can tell, from both of your faces right now, because you're both so easy to read, that you weren't planning on telling me."

Sabrina sat on the edge of her bed. "It's private. What we do is no one else's business. It's not like we have an obligation to tell people."

"I'm not people. I'm your sister. I'm your best friend."

"We wanted to keep it light and breezy," I explained, reaching out to touch her arm but she pulled away.

"You've been sneaking around. Were you planning to continue to sneak around behind my back and last night? Have you been lying to me about what you were doing and where you are? Because that would really suck. You'd rather be partying with each other than being with me while I'm sick?" Anna laughed, but it was sarcastic. "I'm there for you, both of you and then you can't be bothered to be there for me when I need you."

Shit. "Anna . . ."

"Go home, Sam."

"No. She's here as my guest, Anna," Sabrina said.

"No, I think I should go." I looked around the room for anything that was mine and noted that nothing of mine was there. "I'm sorry, Anna."

"I don't want to hear it right now."

"Okay." I looked up as I headed out of the room, eyes burning a little. "I'll leave you guys to talk."

When the door closed behind me, there were heated whispers, churning the guilt around in my stomach more. Anna was right. She'd been there for me when I spoke about Sabrina with her, and I didn't have the decency to tell her what I decided to do? I let her believe that nothing came out of it? I sucked. Over the years, Anna never pushed her sister and me to become friends again, never once insinuated or complained about the rocky position we both put her in. And when we're finally getting along – even if it was a different way than she could've imagined, we didn't tell her?

We were totally in the wrong for not keeping her in the loop.