Holy fuck, how do I answer this? I just came with my cock buried in her asshole last night, both of us groaning with ecstasy as Ifilled her with jizz, so I answer in a neutral tone. “We are, in our own way.”
“Hmmm,” she murmurs.
“She grew up,” I tell her. “Got beautiful.”
For a moment, I imagine Daisy throwing the frame at my head. Instead, she laughs—a quick, shaky sound—and sets it down. “She looks like someone I used to know,” Daisy says, and I can tell she’s unsteady. Her hands are trembling. She tucks them behind her back.
“Do you ever remember anything new?” I ask, gently. “Any flashes?”
She bites her lip, shakes her head. “Not really,” she says, but her eyes dart to the window, then back to the shelf. She picks up the barbecue photo—the one with the swimsuit and the hot dog. Her thumb slides over the image of the girl’s face, just for a second, before she puts it down.
“Do you ever talk?” Daisy asks, looking straight at me now. “To your stepsister, I mean.”
I swallow, again wondering how to answer this without stating a bald lie. “Sometimes.”
There’s a tension in the room, like the air is waiting for us to finish the story.
Daisy moves to the chair, perches on the arm. The light catches her hair and she looks almost translucent, unreal. “I feel like I should know her,” she admits. “But it’s just blank.”
I nod, not trusting myself to speak.
After a long minute, she sighs. “Sorry if I sound weird.”
“You don’t,” I say, and I almost believe it.
She glances back at the photos, then stands up, smoothing the hem of her shirt. “Do you have more of these?” she asks, casual.
“In storage,” I say. “At my parents’ place.”
She turns to face me, blue eyes wide. There’s a flicker—fear, maybe, or just nerves—but she covers it with a smile. “We could go there,” Daisy says, the words a dare.
I let myself imagine it: driving her out to the old house, showing her the basement full of boxes, the faded posters still taped to her bedroom wall. I wonder if any of it would mean anything to her, or if she’d just stand there, hollow, as the past spilled out at her feet.
“I’d like that,” I tell her.
She nods, but I can tell she’s uneasy. “Will your parents be there if we go?” she asks.
“Probably not,” I say. “They’re in Florida this week. It would just be just us.”
She exhales, relief or disappointment, I can’t tell.
I close the laptop, stand up, and move to the shelf. I pick up the photo she was tracing, the one from the barbecue, and hold it out to her.
“Are you sure you don’t recognize her?” I ask, soft.
She takes it, stares for a long time. Her jaw clenches. “No,” she says, almost too fast. “I would know if I’ve met your stepsister before. Besides, she’s old now, right?”
I shrug.
“About your age.”
Daisy sets it down with shaking hands, and then leaves the room.
I stand in the silence, staring at the photo, and wonder if I’ve just signed my own confession.
That night,I’m in a hesitant mood. Not distant, exactly, but conflicted. What the fuck am I doing, showing Daisy old pictures of herself? I hover in the kitchen, grilling steaks, arranging a salad so that it’s a thing of beauty, and bringing the curvy girl a glass of red before she even asks. It feels like an apology for something I can’t name.
After dinner, I try to help with the dishes, but she waves me off, sending me to the couch while she sings along—soft, warbling, on the edge of pitch—to an old playlist she finds on the home system. Every time I get up to help, she shakes her head. “Sit. I got this.”