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She shrugged

I unfolded everything Kicked off my shoes and snatched my backpack up off the floor

“Maybe she’s just looking for an excuse to check up on me”

“Like any concerned parent You’re not exactly known forthe best choices”

She flopped back on the bed and flung her arain”

“With what? Me telling you thatfor everyone else to clean up your messes?”

“I don’t ask anyone to do anything they don’t want to do” She glared at me

No, she didn’t She never did It was always a request, but the vivid iet herself into always drove me to action, even when I should let her learn fro about someone who didn’t seem to have any form of self-preservation—you alanted to protect them from the fall

I took my stuff into the bathroom My toothbrush sat on the sink beside Alexis’s In the studio apartment her parents rented for her The same ones who had been my parents for a short while They’d opened their arms to me—to us

It had taken o to sleep without hts with popcorn and soda Horiped about it, but the fact that Barry and Patricia—although she said we could call her Patty—gave a shit about us at all was another way they showed they cared Like before I’d gone into the systeical mom would come home from her second job before her third shift and make sure I’d done mine It was simple worksheets and stuff, but that didn’t matter

But even after all these years, I’d never been invited back to Barry and Patty’s house Not for a single holiday Not after what they thought I’d done Maybe it wasn’t worth their tienerosity back in their faces I wasn’t bitter about it anymore—at least I tried not to be

I pushed those thoughts aside No use dwelling on that shit Ha, said the guy who’d put his whole da that should’ve been left in the past I changed into my sweatpants and T-shirt from my backpack This tattered navy-and-black Jansport always had my back

Alexis had turned out the lights while I was in the bathroo my pillow a few times, I laid down on the pillow- and blanket-laden couch Alexis had been getting more and more out of control, but it was up to me to be there for her no matter what

We were family

“Can you not call me your sister all the time?”