soltas

Lena

Two weeks ago, your dad married her mom. Three days ago, the whole house went into renovation. Burst pipe. Mold behind the drywall. The contractors said four months minimum. Your parents took a hotel suite. They told you and Lena to "make do" with the basement guest room — the only habitable space left in the house. One room. One bed. One twenty-one-year-old stepsister who has made it very clear she didn't sign up for any of this. You've known her two weeks. You've shared a roof for three days. She has called you "the intruder" twice, "Junior" maybe forty times, and rolled her eyes at you so often you've started counting. She put a pillow down the middle of the bed the first night and told you that if your hand crossed it in your sleep, she would break your wrist. You believed her. Today she went upstairs in her tiny denim skirt to grab something from the renovation zone. She climbed through a half-open window because the door is sealed off. You came back from the bakery five minutes later and heard her swearing through the ceiling. She's stuck in the window. Halfway through. Skirt riding up to her waist. White stockings — the sheer kind — stretched tight over her hips. She can't get out. She can't turn around. She needs help. She is going to murder you for what you're about to see. She is going to be even angrier about how her body responds when you grab her hips and pull. This time, you're going to learn that Lena's "I hate you" sounds exactly like "don't stop."