Vicious Romance

Chapter 28

It's not possible. What's she doing here? She should not be here. She's supposed to be at home, with our parents, preparing for college, SATs, and god knows what. But what she wasn't supposed to be standing here, in front of my apartment, with luggage in hand.

"Hally-?" she calls out, pulling me out of my thoughts. I shake my head, taking in her sight, one more time.

I turn behind the door, calling out to Noah, telling him that I was going to be a while. I then walk out into the hallway, closing the door behind me, and I can already feel my forehead crinkling in anger.

"Jaya, what are you doing here?" I whisper shout, struggling to keep my voice low.

I don't want Noah to be able to hear any of this through the door.

Instead of getting a straight answer, she drops her luggage and runs to me, wrapping her arms around me, resting her head on my shoulder.

"I missed you, di," she says admiringly.

I scoff, and pry her twig-like arms off me, in disgust.

That was utter bullshit.

"Mhm, you traveled 200 miles, because you 'missed' me," I quote, crossing my arms over my chest.

Jaya lived with my parents, in Boston. We used to live in Jersey, once upon a time. But when I got into Harvard, our mom thought that it would be a good idea to move the entire family there, so that later my sister could go to MIT- which was in Boston.

If everything was going as planned, she should've submitted her application to MIT a month ago, looking to go into Computer Sciences.

But if she's here, that meant that something is wrong.

And that she needs something from me.

Jaya pinches her brows and sighing at me.

"Okay, okay. I ran away from home to join you in New York," she exclaims, showing jazz hands at the end.

I feel my face harden, frustration swimming through me.

"You ran away?!" I scream, trying to squeeze my lips in a twisted line, attempting to prevent an outburst.

She senses my tension but continues to beam brightly, justifying her actions.

"Yeah," she starts. "Mom and dad were being impossible with college, and everything. So I decided to take a train, and come stay with you," she smiles, acting like a toddler.

I feel my hands shake violently as I struggle to keep them out of her view. My skin suddenly boils anger, and I tell myself to breathe before I do something I'll regret.

"You can't run away whenever you want to, Jaya. That's not responsible, for god's sake," I start, running my fingers through my curls. "And coming to me, out of all people. You already know what mom and dad think of me. This, this, will make things worse for me," regretting the words as soon as they come out of my mouth. But, I continue. "And Jaya, I'm in the middle of a case right now, so really, your timing isn't great," I add quietly as possible.

I expect betrayal, or sadness to cross her face, but the exact opposite seems to happen.

Her smile widens as if completely disregarding my words.

"Mom and dad hating you is more of a reason why I came here. They already despise you and don't expect much from you. So, you don't have much of a reputation to uphold in front of them," chirping, not realizing that her babbling wasn't winning any points with me.