Every single light was on inside the house when I pulled into the
driveway at ten that night.
Literally every one.
I sighed as I turned the ignition off and told myself that soon there wasn’t going to be anyone at the house to turn on a single light. Or make my lunch. Or give me a hug when I needed it. Or talk me into staying up late to watch a scary movie.
That reminder just made me sigh again, but for a totally different reason.
Then I remembered how high my electricity bill was going to be this summer if my little sister didn’t calm down, and I opened the door and got out.
In the dark, it was too hard to see the old house except for the squares and rectangles of light behind the curtains that Thea, my slightly younger sister, had bought as my birthday present a year ago.
Up the two steps, I swung my keys around my index finger and then slipped the right one into the lock and turned it. The television blared, but somehow my baby sister, Lily, heard me open the door because she called out, “Luna? Is that you?”
“No, it’s the ax murderer.” I dropped my keys into the bowl my other sister had bought for my birthday the same year. “Did you make something for dinner?” Please, please, please….
“No, I ordered pizza!” my little sister replied from where she usually was stationed on a rare Friday she wasn’t working—in front of the TV because senior year of high school was exhausting apparently. Not that I would have known that.
I’d always been able to see right through my sister’s BS. She stayed home on no-work-Fridays so that she wouldn’t spend money. She was always saving for something. For the last year, she’d been saving for
college expenses. The year before that, she’d been saving for a car—a car I had ended up splitting with her.
At the thought of pizza, my stomach grumbled, reminding me I hadn’t finished my lunch, and since then, I had only stuffed down a banana and a handful of Skittles from my not-so-secret stash after my incident with Rip. I thought it was some kind of miracle I hadn’t ended up with a headache, but the Coke I’d had with the Skittles had probably helped.
I was tired. Inside and out. No matter how much I had tried not to wallow in the guilt I felt for screwing up—and how much I tried not to think about how unforgiving Rip had been about it—it had happened. His facial expression, tone, and the guilt in my gut just kept running on a loop in my head. The tightness in my chest hadn’t gone anywhere in hours.
It was still hanging around the general vicinity of my heart. I was embarrassed and disappointed in myself.
Sorry doesn’t fix your fucking mistake.
I sighed once more as I untied my boots and then toed them off, leaving them right next to Lily’s black Converse, eyeing the pair of checkered yellow Vans and pink New Balances there too.
Rubbing my brow bone with the back of my hand, I dragged my feet in the direction of the living room down the hall. Passing through, there were still so many things I wanted to redo to the house, and tearing down some of these walls were next on my list. Hopefully I could get Lily to help me before she left, and if my other sisters came to visit, I could get them to help too. There weren’t enough hours in the day or days in the year.
In the living room, I found her sitting in between a girl and a boy her age that I had met before. I lifted my hand at them but blew a kiss at the dark blonde in the middle.
“Hey,” I said to the three of them, watching as my little sister raised her arms up to the ceiling as her way to get me to come toward her.
She was the most affectionate one in the family, which was just one more reason I was going to miss her when she left for college. That thought pierced me straight in the gut.
She was graduating high school next week. Next week. She’d be eighteen in a couple of weeks. Legally an adult but forever my baby sister who had grown up way too fast, no matter how hard I had tried to prevent that from happening.
Bending over the back of the couch, Lily’s arms went around my neck as she pressed my cheek to the side of her face. “Tough day, sugar tits?”
My “It wasn’t the best, but it wasn’t the worst, sugar lumps” went right into her cheek as I dropped a quick kiss on it.
“Sorry, boo.” She pecked me right back. Her green eyes—the same shade as mine and both of our sisters too—were extra watchful. She had told me enough times how I worked too much and was going to wear myself out too quick. “Want us to go to my room?” Her gaze flicked to my wrist and she smiled. “Oh, look, you’re wearing it.”
I gave her another kiss on the cheek before straightening. “Of course I am, and not unless you care if I sit here for a little while with your leftover pizza.”
She made a face. “You’ve been snorting too many paint fumes today.”
I made a face back at her before turning around and heading into the kitchen down another short hallway. I really needed to open up the house more and make the layout better. I’d gotten the plans for it right after I’d bought the place, and I’d bet I could find an engineer or an architect who could tell me just how many of the walls I could take down. I worked too much to really get a lot of the Home Remodeling Network shows in, but I had a general idea of what I wanted this place to look like eventually.
I took in what I had currently—a closed-off kitchen that had been popular in a different century, solid cabinets, a countertop that had been replaced at some point in the last twenty years, and a stove and refrigerator that got the job done… There were glass and ceramic containers on the countertops, a fancy blender that Lily had talked me into, a countertop mixer that I had splurged on during a Black Friday sale, and a wire basket half-filled with apples and oranges.
I had so much, and I was so lucky. Even in its current state of needing a serious uplift, even the kitchen could make me happy. Because it was mine, and no one could take it away… unless I stopped paying the mortgage, but I hadn’t gotten fired yet, so that would be a worry for another day.
I could still easily remember the days of looking through a pantry and refrigerator with no food in it. I had made myself a promise that I would someday open a cabinet and always find something in there to eat and my sisters could have the same. I had sworn to myself that if I ever became a parent, I would give my kids what my parents had been too selfish and negligent and careless to give us.
And right then I remembered that I had managed that. Maybe it took working sixty hours a week and getting scolded by a boss who usually blatantly ignored me when I tried to put him in a good mood, but I had done it. I had done it.
As tired as I felt then, as much as my shoulders ached from holding the spray gun, and my arms and hands and back and feet hurt from the hours of bodywork I had done that day, it was all worth it.
There was a laugh from the living room that I knew was my little sister’s and that too just cemented how worth it busting my ass was.
So, as I made my way toward the pizza box sitting on the counter beside the refrigerator, I felt lighter again.
Maybe I had gotten in trouble. Maybe it hadn’t been the best day ever. Maybe everything hurt. But I was home. I had gotten a kiss from someone who loved me. I had a bed to sleep in.
For all intents and purposes, it was a good day despite a couple things.
Then I opened the pizza box, saw there was only one single slice left, and I told myself again it was still a pretty good day.
I had enough in the budget to call and order another pizza if I really wanted to, and that was pretty damn good if I said so myself.
