Truth Be Told

fifteen

"WELL, YOU LOOK LIKE SHIT."

Colin stares at his sister's slightly pixelated face on his laptop screen. "Wait till you get to college. Looking like shit is pretty much the default."

"Liar. I'd seen Dexter's Instagram photos. He certainly doesn't look like shit."

Colin rolls his eyes, once again reminded of Cindy's long-time crush on his best friend. If Hadley wasn't in the picture, Colin's pretty sure Cindy would have made a move despite her being three years younger. She always joked about herself being Ginny Weasley, and how she'd be the one snagging Dexter in the end. "All in good time," she used to tell Colin.

"Maybe you just need a girlfriend," Cindy tells him now. "That might whip you up to shape."

"I don't have time for a girlfriend." Colin pulls out his planner from the pile of books on the makeshift table, opening it to this week's spread.

"What about a boyfriend?" Cindy suggests. "Perry looks nice."

"Don't tell him that." Colin once made the mistake of going on a video call with Sadie while Perry and Drew were home. Now, he does his best to only answer her calls when he has the apartment to himself.

"Why not? I've seen his Instagram photos too."

Colin heaves a sigh. "Don't believe everything you see on social media. That fucker dedicates, like, ninety-percent of his energy trying to take good photos of himself. How's Mom and Dad doing?"

"They're fine," Cindy replies. "Dad seems a little overworked with the whole renovation thing, and Mom's crocheting her stress away."

"She's crocheting again?"

"You didn't know?" she asks him. The camera moves as she picks her phone up, focusing the view on her bed instead. "You see that?"

Colin recognizes the crocheted blanket on Cindy's bed and easily spots the row of handmade stuffed animals sitting on her bed.

"I'm trying to convince her to sell them online, but she keeps insisting nobody will want them," Cindy, who is out of the frame, tells him.

There's a rustle as she puts her phone back to where it was earlier, entering the frame once more.

"Is she all right?" Colin asks her, unable to stop himself from worrying. Crochet is something their mom does on and off, usually when she's very stressed or uneasy. The last time she picked up the hobby was when Clark went rogue on them.

"Don't worry. I'll keep an eye on them."

"All right," he says, but the worry still gnaws at him. They've started renovating the grocer earlier this year, with hopes of slowly expanding it to a mini mall. While this seems to be a good step for the business, Colin can't even imagine the toll it must be taking on their parents. "Tell me if anything comes up."

"I will," Cindy says.

"What about you? How are you holding up?"

"Oh, you know. Same old. Nothing exciting ever happens in Rivermount anyway. I can't wait to get into college and leave all this high school drama behind."

"College isn't all that fun either, you know."

"Says the guy who keeps sending me drunk texts."

"It was one time—"

"You literally sent—"

"I was just—"

Before he can finish his sentence, a movement on his self camera catches his attention. The apartment door is opening behind him and before his brain could realize what this actually means, Sadie enters both the apartment and the camera frame.