Robin Wasserman - Frozen

Auden looked doubtful. “And go where?”

“Who cares? Anywhere but here.”

“We only have a couple more hours to get through…”

Since when did a couple hours of hell qualify as only ? “Whatever. You stay. I’m going.” I turned on my heel and headed quickly down the hall, but not so quickly that he couldn’t catch up, which he did after a couple steps. He always did.

“You win,” he said. “Where to?”

“Out.” I pushed through the door at the end of the hall, wishing I could smell the March air. It no longer got much warmer as winter shifted to spring, but there was still something different in the air, something sweeter—fresher. Or maybe that’s just how I like to remember it. “Then we’ll come up with something.”

But we wouldn’t.

The exit we’d chosen was tucked at the end of a mostly unused corridor and opened into the alley behind the school, usually packed with delivery trucks, repair units, garbage compactors, and the steady trickle of students who’d elected to seek their education elsewhere for the day and preferred to do so without getting caught. But that afternoon it was empty except for a couple groping each other against the brick wall, her tongue shoved into his mouth, her back to the wall with her shirt creeping up to expose a bare, flat middle while his hands pawed her skin, snaking beneath her skirt. His fingers found her neck, her arms, her abs, her hair; hungry, grasping, needing, she sighed, he groaned, they breathed for each other. I couldn’t see their faces.

I didn’t need to.

I recognized the sound of him first, eager panting punctuated every so often by unprompted laughter, like a little kid, like an unexpected joy had overwhelmed him. I recognized his hands. Especially the way they crept beneath the skirt, massaging bare thigh.

It took a moment longer to identify her, although it shouldn’t have, even without her face. I knew her arms, her legs, her sighs, her lanky blond hair. I’d just never known them like this. Or maybe I didn’t want to know.

I let the door slam behind us.

They sprang apart. Walker looked up. Gasped. My sister took a deep breath and opened her eyes.

She looked like she’d been waiting for me.

I couldn’t look at them. I couldn’t look at Auden, either. I couldn’t stand the idea of him—of anyone—seeing me see this . I wanted to run the scene backward, slip back into the school, back to the hallway, back to class, like none of it had ever happened. Some things were better not to know.

Because once you knew, there wasn’t much choice. You had to deal.

Somehow.

“I’m sorry,” Walker said. His hand was resting on her lower back. Like he was trying to keep her steady. Her .

“It just happened,” he said.

“I didn’t want to hurt you,” he said.

He was still touching her.

“I don’t know how it started,” he said.

Enough.

“ I know.” My voice was steady. That was easy. My legs weren’t shaking. My stomach wasn’t heaving. My heart wasn’t pounding. I was steady. “You shoved your tongue into her mouth. My sister’s mouth. That’s how it started.”

“You’re wrong,” Zo said. And she was steady too. “I shoved my tongue into his mouth. That’s how it started.”

“Zo,” he said, like he was pleading. “Don’t.”

“Why not?” she said. “Aren’t you sick of this? How long were we supposed to wait?”

“How long?” I didn’t want to know what the words meant.

I knew what the words meant.

“How long, Walker?” I asked.

He looked down. So this wasn’t the first time. “After the accident…”

I wished for a stomach, so I could throw up. But there was no way of getting it out. It was all inside of me, stuck. Rotting.

“I was upset, and she was upset, and it helped to, you know, talk. To each other. And one day, we… we just… It wasn’t supposed to happen.”

“So, just to be clear. I almost died ,” I said, still calm, still steady, “and while I was learning how to walk again, fighting to survive , you were back here, fucking my little sister ?”

“We weren’t doing that.” Zo paused. “Not then.”

“This is disgusting,” I said. “You’re disgusting.”

“Lia—”

Zo put her hand on his arm, and he stopped talking. Apparently she was the boss. I’d taught her well. “I told you this would happen,” she said quietly. “Just let it go.”

“Oh, you told him this would happen?” I laughed bitterly. “What, that I’d have the nerve to get upset about my boyfriend screwing my sister?”

“I’m not your boyfriend anymore, Lia. You made that clear.”

“Lucky you, right?” I spat out. “So you could ditch me and go back to the one you really wanted.” Now it made sense. Why he hadn’t wanted to touch me, why he hadn’t wanted to be with me. Why he hadn’t wanted me. Maybe it wasn’t me.

It was her.

“We stopped for you,” he said. “I was willing to try. I told you that.”

Right. Because he pitied me.

“Give him a break,” Zo said. “You don’t know what he was willing to give up for you.”

“I guess I do know, now,” I said. “You.”

I didn’t ask if they actually thought they were in love. I didn’t have to. I didn’t care.

“Why?” I asked. Not Walker; he wasn’t worth it. I asked her.

“I don’t know,” she said lamely. “It just happened.” But she was lying, I knew that. Nothing “just happened” to Zo. It wasn’t the way she ran her life.

I didn’t have to push it. I could let this be like all the other times, when I just let it go, when I pretended things between us were the same as before, that she was just being Zo, nothing more, nothing less. I could keep pretending.

Except I couldn’t keep pretending. Not anymore.

“I mean, why do you hate me this much?”

Her expression didn’t change. “I don’t hate you.”

“You’ve got a weird way of showing it.”

“What do you want from me?” Zo asked. “You want me to give him up? For you ?”

That would be a start.

“Blood is thicker than water, right?” she said, her lip curling into a sneer.

“Well, yeah.”

“Then show me,” she said flatly.

“What?”

“Your blood.”

The anger was a flood, drowning my words.

“I can’t believe you,” I finally choked out. “Literally, I can’t believe this is happening. You’re my sister. How the hell can you do this to me?”

“It’s not my fault he doesn’t want you anymore. None of this is my fault.”

“It’s all your fault!” I screamed. “ You should have been the one in that car. It should have been you !”

The world froze.

I’d never said it out loud before. I’d promised myself. I wouldn’t say it, I wouldn’t think it, I wouldn’t feel it. I would not blame her. I wouldn’t process the ifs. If she’d been in the car, if she’d died that day instead of me. I would still have my body. I would still have my boyfriend. I would still have my life.

I couldn’t take it back.

Walker put an arm around her shoulder.

“Sorry to disappoint you,” she said slowly, her voice cold. “But it wasn’t me. It was you.” I didn’t know what she was thinking. We were sisters, but I never knew what she was thinking. She wrapped her arm around Walker’s waist. “Let’s go,” she murmured. He nodded.

“I’m sorry,” he said again, over his shoulder as they walked away.

She never turned back.

I don’t know how I ended up on the ground. But suddenly that’s where I was, sitting with my back to the wall, only a few feet from where they’d been kissing.