I walk home with the kind of anger that doesn't burn hot. It just sits in your chest like a cold, wet towel. Uncomfortable and impossible to shake off.
The sky's dull. It can't decide if it's going to rain or apologize. My footsteps are louder than they need to be, thudding on the pavement. Zoe peeled off toward her place a few blocks back, and neither of us said much after Reggie's little performance. Just shared that mutual, exhausted look that said: Why the hell did we even help that ungrateful ass?
Helping him was a mistake. A big, fat, stupid one.
I am pretty sure it would've been better getting caught by Mr. Halford. At least detention doesn't insult your entire existence.
One of the million reasons I never liked rich kids in the first place. Not all of them, yeah, sure. But most of them? They live in this sparkly bubble where everything's handed over in pretty boxes, tied with silver bows, and they still act like the world owes them extra. They don't get what it means to earn anything. To wait. To budget. To count coins like prayers.
God, I'm so done.
I shove my hands into my hoodie pocket—and instantly regret it.
The ghost of my empty wallet. The space where ten bucks used to live. Ten bucks. My hard-earned, walked-a-neighbor's-demon-dog-for-an-hour money. Gone. Not coming back. Spent on a cracked cassette that didn't even matter. That walking designer tantrum didn't even thank me. Just tossed his attitude in my face like confetti.
My throat tightens, sudden and hot, and I blink hard at the sky. No. Not crying. Not over Reggie freaking Maddox.
But still…
Now I've gotta wait a whole week to get paid again. No snacks. No emergency iced coffee. No nothing.
Just vibes and regret.
I let out a shaky breath, trying to laugh at how stupid this feels, but the sound catches halfway and turns into this weird, hollow thing instead. Because I'm tired. And mad. And broke.
I finally reach home, shoulders aching, feet dragging like they've been through war. I pull out the key, jam it into the lock, twist harder than I need to and push it open. The familiar creak echoes down the hall, and I step inside.
I kick off my shoes without even pretending to place them neatly on the rack. They land somewhere near the wall with a loud thud.
"I'm home," I mutter, not even sure who I'm saying it to. Maybe just to the walls. Maybe to the ghosts of every choice I've questioned today. Home. Sanctuary of the damned. Or, more kindly—the home of two broken souls.
The smell of curry floats in from the kitchen—spiced and warm and comforting in a way that stabs me right in the chest. It smells like safety. It smells like her.
I peek into the kitchen to see her.
Natalie.
Hair tied back, sleeves rolled up, barefoot in pajamas she's probably had since college. Knife moving fast and sure through a pile of carrots. She doesn't look up, but I know she knows I'm here.
No one would guess she's seven years older than me. Not by her face. She still looks like one of those soft-faced actresses in sad indie films—the ones who cry beautifully and say too much with just a glance. Still stunning. Still graceful, in her own tired way.
She's beautiful.
And depressed.
Just like me.
Except for the beautiful part.
I never thought I was. Not even once.
I lean on the doorway, watching her for a second longer than I should. She hums faintly under her breath—some old song I can't name, something from Mom's playlist, probably.
I want to tell her everything. About Reggie. About today. About how my money's gone and my pride's wrecked and I feel like a fool and a failure in one poorly wrapped teenage body.
But I don't.
Because she already looks like she's trying to hold her own pieces together.
So I do what we always do when the weight of the world's too much to speak out loud.
I step into the kitchen throwing my school bag on the couch, taking off my coat, rolling up my sleeves.
And start setting the table.
She glances at me—just briefly, like a flicker of curiosity beneath her usual silence—then goes back to chopping. "You're late," she says, even though I'm not. I just shrug.
"School drama," I mutter.
Natalie doesn't press. She never does. That's kind of our thing: mutual quiet. We never force each other to spill anything. If it comes out, it comes out. If it doesn't, we keep going. Like tired trains passing each other on parallel tracks, maybe waving, maybe not.
I open the drawer and pull out the chipped plates. Two of them. Always two. No guests. No parents. No crowd. Just me and her and this old apartment that still smells like yesterday's incense.
She slides the chopped veggies into the pan, and the sizzle fills the kitchen with a comforting sigh. I stand at the sink for a second, washing two spoons.
"You okay?" she asks, still not facing me.
I hesitate. That question has too many answers and none I want to give. "Yeah. Just tired."
A beat of silence. The soft clank of her wooden spoon stirring the curry. "Being tired at your age is dangerous," she says gently. "It means you're starting too soon."
I don't reply. Because she's right, and because it hurts a little that she knows.
I finish setting the table, then sit down in my usual chair—the one with the wobble in the backrest that I keep forgetting to fix. Natalie moves around the kitchen like she's done it a thousand times—and she has. Cooking's her therapy. The way she slices, stirs, seasons—it's like she's translating all her sadness into food. Grief turned into garlic. Exhaustion sautéed into something edible.
A few minutes later, Natalie ladles the curry into two mismatched bowls—the blue one with the tiny chip at the rim goes to me, as always, and she keeps the faded yellow one for herself. Rituals, I guess. Little things we never agreed on out loud but somehow stuck like muscle memory. She sets them down gently, wiping her hands on a towel that probably started out white before life turned it into "apartment grey."
Then she sits across from me.
Not just sits—folds. She tucks her knees up into the chair like she's curling in on herself, arms looped around her legs, chin resting lazily on one knee. And suddenly, it hits me how young she still looks when she does that. Like time forgot to age her properly, or maybe just got distracted halfway through. She's still sixteen, in spirit if not in years.
But her eyes betray her. They've seen too much.
She doesn't eat right away. Just stirs the curry in her bowl absentmindedly. She rests her chin on one hand, elbow on the table, eyes somewhere near the fridge but not really on it. Just lost. Floating. Thinking about something that probably doesn't want to be remembered.
I take the first bite. The curry's hot, a little spicy, rich with too much cumin—exactly how she likes it. Which means she probably made it more for herself than for me. Still, it warms my throat, then my chest, then the ache behind my ribs I didn't even know was there.
"I was thinking," she says suddenly, "about quitting the cafe."
I blink. "What?"
She stares down into her bowl. "It's not working anymore. The hours. The pay. The people. I—I don't know. I think I need a change."
That's the thing about Natalie. She doesn't say much for days, sometimes weeks. Then she drops something like this mid-chew, like she's just remembering to tell me she bought milk. I swallow the curry too fast and cough.
"You've worked there for, like, five years."
"Six." She lifts one shoulder. "And I'm still not out of this apartment. Still wearing the same pajamas from college. Still counting change before rent day."
I glance around. Yeah, the apartment's small. Peeling wallpaper. A window that doesn't close all the way. A fridge that hums like it's crying at night. But it's also the only place that's ever really felt like mine—like ours.
"You gonna look for something else?"
"Maybe. I was thinking of going back to school."
That makes me freeze.
Natalie?
Back to school?
She was always the smart one, not that she ever believed it. She could've gone to any university she wanted if life hadn't—well—life'd.
"To study what?" I ask quietly.
But Natalie shakes her head, a small smile flickering at the corners of her mouth like she knew I'd think that.
"Not to study, idiot," she says. "To teach."
I blink. "Wait. Like… be a teacher?"
She gives a soft shrug, almost shy. "Yeah. Maybe. High school. Something with kids who don't know they're smart yet. Or the ones who've been told they're not."
My brain stutters for a second. Not because she wouldn't be good at it—God, she'd be amazing—but because I've never heard her say something like that out loud. It's so… solid. So hopeful. Like a real plan, not just the vague dreaming we do sometimes when rent's paid early and the moon looks friendly.
She went to the same school I go to now. Same squeaky floors. Same yellowing science lab posters and vending machines. I used to trail behind her in the halls like a shadow, watching the way people looked at her. Half admiration, half mystery. Natalie always had this quiet presence. Never loud. Just there in a way people noticed.
And then she graduated.
Just like that, one summer she was gone, and suddenly the school felt emptier. Teachers still remembered her. "Ah, Natalie's sister," they'd say with a nod or a flicker of recognition that always made me want to disappear into the floor. She left behind a legacy of top scores, essays with actual soul, and that one time she stood up to a teacher for unfair grading and somehow won. Legend.
But it didn't go how she planned, after.
College didn't last long. Life—money, people, time, everything—got in the way. She came home. Said it was temporary. Got a job at the café, started paying bills she shouldn't have to, and before long, that same girl who once wrote poetry in the margins of her notebooks was just… tired. Still kind. Still funny. But tired.
"Why now?" I ask, half under my breath.
She runs a hand through her hair, lets out a quiet, self-conscious laugh. "I don't know. I was on the bus yesterday, and there was this girl reading a textbook out loud to herself. Like, whispering the words with such concentration. And everyone around her was staring like she was being weird, but she didn't stop. And I just… I don't know. Something clicked."
She pauses, then looks down at her half-empty plate like it holds answers.
"I used to be that girl," she adds softly. "Back when I thought hard work would always lead somewhere."
I don't say anything. I just listen.
"And I guess I want to be the reason someone doesn't give up on themselves. Or at least… feels like they matter, even when everything around them says they don't."
A beat of silence. A slow exhale. Then she laughs again, almost bitter this time. "God, listen to me. I sound like a guidance counselor from a bad movie."
But I don't laugh.
Because I'm too busy staring at her as if I'm seeing her for the first time in a while. Not just my sister in a faded hoodie, hair tied up in a loose bun, scraping together dinner after work—but someone who still has enough light left in her to imagine a future.
Someone who could stand at the front of a classroom one day and make a kid believe they're not a failure.
"You'd be a great teacher," I say, my voice catching a little.
Natalie looks at me like she's checking if I mean it.
I do.