Hack X Love

Episode-3

Nati Grant

I’m going to kill my sister.

I managed a smile for the photo my sunny aunt Martha was taking, the quiet alarm in my head becoming more of a definite possibility by the minute. God knows, it wasn't like my twin sister, Lila, to leave me high and dry, but our parents' fortieth anniversary party was something we'd been planning for months. For Lila to abandon me. Again.

Finally free of picture-taking duty, I left my parents behind and dashed in my ridiculously high heels through the banquet hall to manage the champagne, dodging cousins and uncles and aunts. I hadn't seen some of them in years. If one sister had not left me doing this entire show on my own, I would have had time to stop and chat with each of them.

It had all come together nicely, though. Our parents were beaming in front of a life-size poster of one of their wedding pictures, forty years having done nothing to dim their happiness and love for each other. I snapped a picture of my own before I slipped out the door into a vast hallway to call Lila. As predicted, her voicemail greeting tweeted in my ear.

"Hello?" There was a pause so long that my blood pressure escalated. "Gotcha! Sorry, you don't get to talk to me right now. If you want to talk to me later, better make it good."

I waited through the tone. "I don't want to talk to you. I want to strangle you. Dammit, Lila, where are you?"

Hours ticked by before I could flee to the cheerful solitude of my apartment, where a glass of wine and a Simpsons marathon could hopefully cheer me up a bit. But not even Bart and Homer's animated antics were enough. My anger had burned off to sad ashes, and I could not get the picture of my parents' disappointed faces out of my head. It would be suitable for Lila if none of us ever spoke to her again, as drastic as it sounded, but there was something about Lila that made one inclined to trust her and believe her when she made the promises that she never intended to keep. And the anger I unleashed on that when inevitably it did happen could just as easily be unleashed on myself for enabling my twin, for never once imposing any consequences when Lila stood me up.

But how many times had I tried? How many times had it worked?

My glass was empty then, and I poured another, sitting alone on my sofa and staring at the way the light from the TV hypnotically swirled through the red liquid as I twirled the drink in my glass. Everything I was trying to do to cheer myself up was having the opposite effect. The fact that I had nobody to vent my frustrations to was making it worse. Tattling on my sister to Mom and Dad wasn't a possibility, at least not today—they were likely in the air for their anniversary vacation to Cabo San Lucas.

Lucky them.

I could use a holiday, too," I told my wineglass. It was the only thing present to listen to me. Then, with a sigh, I set it down on my coffee table and reached for my telephone, sitting up ramrod straight when I saw that I'd somehow managed to miss a text from Lila a whole twenty minutes ago. I'd probably been in the kitchen scavenging.

Sorry. Got into some trouble. Give Mom and Dad my love. I have to ask you for a favor. Go to this address and see him and ask for help. Please. Everything will explain itself.

There was an address that followed, which my eyes read without registering. My brain had blown a fuse on the words "favor."

"Are you freaking kidding me?" I demanded of my phone, holding it in a grip strong enough to crush it.

Lila getting in trouble was nothing new. From high school, to college, and even after, she'd been getting herself or someone else into something she couldn't always talk her way out of. Taking for granted that I would simply forget about tonight and come riding in to bail her out was just part of the game, but Jesus, it had to stop sometime, didn't it?

One thing was for sure. No way was I going to that address, wherever it was. To some strange place to ask some person I didn't even know for—what, anyway? Who was I even searching for? I wasn't going to let Lila make me look like a fool on top of everything else.

No one else could pull me from my warm cocoon on the couch to venture out into the biting cold. I did not know what I would find at my sister's flat; I did not care, yet I was going anyway. Lila would not be there probably, but it might not be too difficult to sniff around and find out where she was. Then I'd go fetch her, even if I had to board a plane to do it.

There were some things that I just had to say to Lila's face, and it was long overdue.

I ripped through my apartment, pulling a coat on and stuffing my feet into boots. My heart pounded in my ears. No one on earth had the ability to get under my skin like this. I hadn't trusted Lila since college, my twin's actions during that particular time in our lives having been the final straw.

Sure, she was my sister. Sure, I still loved her just the same. Gossiping, shopping, friendship…those were a breeze. But real trust? That ship had sailed years ago, when Lila had pulled what was probably her most ruthless stunt of all—at least that I knew about. The skeletons that might be lurking in Lila's closet were enough to give me cold sweats. We had the same face, and Lila probably had enough enemies that I should look over my own shoulder when I walked down the street.

In the back of the Uber I summoned because wine and rage and driving didn't mix, I white-knuckled my purse straps the entire ride to my sister's apartment, practicing in my mind all I wanted to say in case Lila was there. Confrontation tended to tie my tongue in knots, and no doubt it would this time too.

I had to put my words in a line in my head or they would tumble right out. But bothering at the back of my mind was the awareness that our parents would never recover from an insurmountable rift between us, for any reason. It was enough for me to concentrate on some of the insults I wished to hurl at Lila's perpetually smug countenance. But not many.

In case Lila was out living it up on some fantastic adventure and would show up next week, thinking everything would be okay—I reinstated the epithets.

Lila had provided me with a key to her apartment ages ago so that I might water her plants when she was not around. The plants had died regardless—Lila did not even take care of them herself after she got back home from wherever she had gone. But I had retained the key, and it had been useful more than once. I crept directly to my sister's door, lifted my fist to knock on it, thought better of it—she might not even answer—and inserted the key in the lock.

The scene that greeted my eyes when I turned on the nearby light caused my heart to stutter and my breath to catch, briefly choking me.

My sister's apartment was trashed.