I looked away, suddenly fascinated by a pigeon on a branch outside her window. “I was going to. It’s just…complicated.”
“Och, is it?” She let out a humorless laugh. “You, living in the house of the man your ex-friend accused you of trying to steal, while half the town still thinks you’re a homewrecker, and now you’re actually sleeping with him? Can’t imagine why that would be complicated.”
I flinched. “That’s unfair.”
“Is it?” she pressed. “Or is it me saying out loud the things you’re desperately trying not to think?”
Mitch returned to me and put his head on my knee. His warm brown eyes looked lovingly up at me and I stroked his soft ears automatically, my throat tight. “It’s not like that, Z. It’s not some…revenge fling or proof the gossip was right. We’ve been talking. A lot. We’re actually …connecting. And honestly?” I swallowed. “I like him. Like, this actually feels good. It’s … real.”
Her mouth trembled almost imperceptibly. “And you didn’t think that maybe your sister might want to know before she finds out when someone mentions they saw you snogging him in a pub alley?”
Heat flooded my face. “Who saw?”
“Quite a few people, apparently,” she said tersely. “Lachlan mentioned it to Sophie, Sophie mentioned it to Faelan, Faelan mentioned it to me because she thought surely I knew. Imagine my surprise when I didn’t.”
I winced. “It wasn’t— We were just?—”
“Liora.” Her voice cut through my flailing. “This isn’t about you kissing someone. You’re allowed to have a love life. I am not the celibacy police.”
“Could’ve fooled me,” I muttered.
“It’s about the secrets,” she said bluntly. “You moved back here because things were spiraling. You lost your flat, your reputation was in tatters, you were ready to give up astrologyaltogether. You cried on the phone to me in that grim hotel room and said you needed help. I found you a place to live. I even paid your first month’s rent.” Her fingers curled against the counter, knuckles white. “And then you promptly got yourself entangled in a situation that could blow up in your face in a dozen different ways, and you didn’t think to tell me?”
“Because I knew you’d react like this,” I shot back. “Like I’m some daft child who needs to come ask your permission before I kiss someone.”
This time, she recoiled like I’d slapped her.
“That’s not fair,” she said, low. “You don’t need my permission. I’ve only asked you for honesty. There’s a difference.”
For a moment, I wanted to cave. To apologize and promise to do better, to fold myself back into the familiar shape of the sister who was always screwing up. It would be so easy. We’d done this dance a hundred times.
But something stiffened inside me. Maybe it was the way Sophie and the others had looked at me around that dinner table, like I was someone capable. Maybe it was the threads I’d seen glowing above Matthew’s chart, trusting my hands. Maybe it was Torin’s voice in my ear, telling me I wasn’t naïve, I was hopeful, and that I deserved people who protected that softness instead of shaming it.
“I’m allowed to have things that are mine,” I said, surprising myself with the steadiness of my tone. “That aren’t run through the Zara Filter first.”
Zara’s nostrils flared. “The Zara Filter?”
“Aye,” I said. “Where every choice I make gets assessed for risk and stupidity, and then you let me know how much I’ve disappointed you.”
“That’s not—” She broke off, visibly reining herself in. “I worry.Of courseI worry. Because you leap. You always have.Headfirst, no looking. And I’ve…spent a lot of years digging you out of messes.”
“I’ve never asked you to,” I said quietly.
The second the words left my mouth, regret punched me in the chest. That wasn’t true and we both knew it. I’d asked for her help more times than I could count. I’d cried on her sofa, raided her tea cupboard, let her pay deposits I couldn’t afford.
But I was so tired of feeling like a walking cautionary tale in her eyes.
Her jaw clenched. “You have. But I don’t care, Liora. Don’t you see? That’s what being a big sister means. I’m the one who sees the cliff before you cheerfully walk off it.”
“Oh, come on,” I snapped, frustration spiking. “I’m not that bad.”
Zara lifted a hand and began counting off on her fingers. “The time you moved in with a man after three weeks because your synastry was off the charts and he turned out to be a kleptomaniac. The time you started that MLM candle business because Mercury was in your second house and thought it meant start a company rather than don’t sign contracts with pyramid schemes. The viralWitchTokreading that got you booted from your flat. The Avery incident. Do I need to keep going?”
I flinched with each example, even the ones I could laugh about on a good day.But why was she so insistent to remember every failure? Is she also aware of the times I’ve succeeded?
“Okay,” I said tightly. “I get it. I’m the common denominator in my disasters.”
“That’s not what I said,” she protested.