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“Will you ainst the couch

“What kind of promise?”

“Never say never”

“What?”

“Promise me you will never say that you will never marry me”

“Tayia, I—”

“Promise me, Blakey”

I blinked at her for a few seconds because I didn’t knohat to say Like I told her, I had no plans to ever get married My Uncle Ronnie was not irlfriends I wanted to be like hirew up, but the look on Tayia’s face made it hard to tell her no I really did care about her, even if she was irritating

“Fine, and you have to proet a husband, you’llbraid resting over her shoulder

“Well, that’s a silly thing to proled and I rolledup “Oh, it will be so easy! We already have the san, I tell you”

“Signs? Do you even knohat you’re talking about?” I gru full well that she would follow I fixed us both a sandwich and we ate at the table while she chattered away about a new book she’d been reading, Wuthering Heights Even though I’d already read it for my advanced literature class, I pretended to not knohere the story was headed because I liked hearing her retell it Mo level, but Tayia didn’t have a probleh the book

We heard the key slip into the front door lock and turned our heads to see our parents walking into the kitchen, hand in hand and s

“We have news! Wonderful news!” Mom announced excitedly but etting ers to show us her dia on her toes in excitelances

“Gettingmy voice

“Blake, I know this

all see each other for a while We just didn’t want to get you kids involved until we knehere things were going between us long terether nervously and walked over to stand next tofor us, sweetheart” She smiled down at me and put a hand on my shoulder

“Kids, Maggie and I love each other very uys! Why the long faces?” He threw a confused glance at his daughter “Tayia?”

“Congratulations, Daddy,” she staie” She reached an arm around my mom

“Tayia, I know I can never replace your mother, and I’” She touched Tayia’s cheek “I want you to know I love you, and I hope one day you can call me Mom” Tayia nodded stiffly then shifted her eyes to me

“Blake?” Mo with all this?”

“I’h my mind felt frozen in confusion

“This will all work out just fine” Mr Jones smiled down at us “Would you look at that, Tayia doll? You have a brother now”

Why did so my sister? I didn’t understand it then, but the uneasiness I felt that night would turn into a full rebellion inside over the next eight years