A barely perceptible smile tugs at my lips.
"Let her try," I murmured.
I straighten my shoulders and leave the bathroom. The murmur of the house envelops me: laughter, the clinking of glasses, the scent of wood and home. But my gaze finds her immediately.
Bianca.
She's sitting on the sofa, her right leg crossed over her left, far too comfortable in a place that doesn't belong to her. She's laughing with Amelie, my older sister, with a nonchalance that strikes me as almost obscene… her eyes flick toward me.
Just a fraction of a second. She doesn't look away. But I choose to ignore her. To keep walking. To do what I do best: dissolve into my own coldness.
As I'm about to enter my brother's study, he approaches.
"Would you like a drink?" he asks, with that newfound lightness I'v
