I gape, offended. “I have not. I’m a realist. I always have been.”
“Mm-hmm.” Bea bites into her doughnut. “Okay.”
“Am I perhaps slightly jaded, given what my work makes me see? Yeah. But I’m not a cynic.”
“It’s your blessing and burden as an Aquarius, KitKat—you see all the world’s possibilities and all the ways it’s failing, too.”
A groan leaves me. “I deeply resent the zodiac for making me this transparent.”
“That, sweet sis, is just another example of how you are a textbook Aquarius. And I love you for it.”
Bea sets her hand on my thigh and pats it softly in a steady rhythm, a stim she hasn’t done in a long time. I feel a nostalgic pinch in my heart that she’s slipped into something she used to do often when we were kids—touch in a way Jules never found comfortable to receive for extended periods of time. Jules was the hard-hug giver. I was the one Bea tap-tap-tapped on, because it made my sensory-seeking body happy.
“I just . . .” She sighs, still steadily tap-tapping. “I just wish you saw the good parts of Christopher.”
“I’m sorry, his what parts?”
She draws her hand away and dives into the parchment bag for another doughnut. “I’m not saying it right. I meant, I wish he showed you his good parts.”
“I want to see none of Christopher’s parts, thank you very much.”
Bea frowns thoughtfully. “That’s fair. It’s like when you come around, he’s his worst self.”
The world does a record scratch. I stare at her, surprised. “You’ve noticed that?”
“Of course I have. I’ve also noticed that you are your worst self with him, too.” She slouches on the sofa, doughnut in hand. “What I don’t understand is why you two make each other so miserable.”
“It started with him! He made me miserable first,” I blurt, instantly kicking myself for my honesty as I watch Bea’s eyes widen.
My family has never seen Christopher for who he is—someone who’s always made me feel like an annoying outsider when I already struggled to find my place in our dynamic. My parents and sisters perceive his behavior as big-brotherly concern, good-natured teasing. Often, it feels like they haven’t perceived it at all, how every chance he has, he arches that disapproving eyebrow and says just the thing to piss me off or make me feel like shit.
Bea slips her hand over mine. “What do you mean?”
“Never mind.” I desperately want to slap a bandage over the yawning, vulnerable hole that my confession’s blasted in my chest, and move on.
“Not so fast.” Bea yanks the doughnut bag away and slides down the length of the sofa, out of reach. “No talkie, no doughnut . . . ie.”
I glare at her. “Put down the doughnuts, BeeBee.”
She shakes her head. “I mean it. I’ll—I’ll . . .” She glances around the apartment, before the lightbulb goes on. “I’ll throw them out the window.”
“You wouldn’t.”
She bolts toward the tiny kitchen window. “Don’t test me, KitKat. And let me be clear: I cleaned out Nanette’s maple and facon bits doughnuts. Good luck going back and buying more.”
“Fine!” I yell. “I’ll tell you. Now, hand over the doughnuts.”
Bea arches an eyebrow. “Spill first. Doughnuts after.”
A heavy sigh leaves me as I flop back on the couch, nearly drowning in the abundance of throw pillows whose sheer volume has Jules written all over it. It’s easier to tell the truth when I say it to the ceiling, so that’s what I do.
“Christopher always makes digs at how little I’m home, my choice to travel all over for work. He talks down to me like he sees my lifestyle as immature or . . . I don’t know, inadequate. When he was younger, he ignored me, like I didn’t even exist. When I got older, he started picking apart everything I did. He’s either looking down his nose at me or he’s not looking at me at all, and nobody’s ever done anything about it.”
“KitKat.” Out of the corner of my eye, I watch the doughnut bag lower like a deflated balloon, until Bea’s holding it limply at her side. “I didn’t know. I never saw . . .” There’s a beat of silence, then: “Why didn’t you say anything?”
Still staring at the ceiling as Bea leaves the kitchen and joins me on the couch, I blink away the rare, unwelcome sting building behind my eyes. I hate crying. “I figured everyone saw what I saw and didn’t care.”