Mutual

3 - Mosquitoes

"Ani!" Alana yelled as she stepped out of her room and into the hallway. Due to the lack of response, she called out for her sister again.

Dylan came out of Anastasia's room, looking both annoyed and confused. "She's in the shower. What do you need?"

Alana mentally groaned. She couldn't ask Dylan of all people to kill the mosquito on her wall. He would never let her live that down. "Nothing..." in an attempt to further dissuade him, she added, "it's a girl thing."

Before he could reply, she shut her door and went downstairs.

Dylan didn't know what to think. He had a feeling she was lying about it being a girl thing. And she doesn't normally shut her door when she's not in the room. Something was fishy, and he wanted to figure out what it was. But he also couldn't reasonably go into her room to see if she was hiding something. So for now, he would just have to speculate. Maybe Anastasia would mention it in passing once she knew what was going on.

He went back into Ana's room. Sitting in the chair at her desk, he went on his phone and aimlessly scrolled through social media while he waited for her to finish showering.

A few minutes later, she came into her room fully dressed and drying her hair with a towel. As she brushed her hair, Dylan told her that Alana was calling for her when she was in the shower.

"Is she downstairs?"

"Yeah."

"Oh, Lana," she muttered fondly.

"What? You know what happened?"

"Yeah, this has been going on for years."

Before Dylan could prod more, she walked out of the room. She got toilet paper from the bathroom and opened Alana's door. Looking around and failing to find the insect that Alana was definitely avoiding, she yelled, "Where is it, Lani?"

"On the wall by my bed!"

Dylan heard the response and wondered what could be on the wall. While he tried to piece things together, Anastasia found the mosquito and killed it.

"I got it, Lana. You're safe now. It can't harm you."

"Thanks, Ani," she could hear both the eye roll and sincerity of the statement.

After throwing the toilet paper away, Anastasia went back to her room and sat on her bed.

"What was that all about?" Dylan asked innocently.

Ana, not knowing what kind of fire she would be fueling, answered honestly, "There was a bug in her room."

Suddenly, everything made sense. And Dylan couldn't wait to bring it up.

"Huh, she didn't tell me that. I could've gotten it for her."

Anastasia ran a hand through her hair. "She probably just didn't want to bother you."

"Right," he dragged the word out, knowing full well she didn't ask out of embarrassment. "You wanna play a game?"

"Sure." She stood up and walked over to her desk to give Dylan a chaste kiss. She took his hand, and they went downstairs. "I'm getting a snack. Want anything?"

"I'm good." Dylan gave her a kiss and went into the living room. "Hey, Lani, I think there's a bug in your hair."

"Haha, very funny," she deadpanned.

"Yeah, I thought so, too."

"I'll have you know I'm not afraid of bugs."

"Oh, yeah, that's really believable."

"Look, it was a mosquito. And I'm prone to mosquito bites, and I'm pretty sure I get an allergic reaction to them. And the bastards have a way of evading the tissue when I try to get it. So excuse me if I don't want to get pricked by the prick," Alana defended herself.

Dylan actually looked a bit contemplative at that, like he recognized that maybe it wasn't such an irrational fear. He conceded the point to Alana, "You know what, that's fair."

She was taken aback. She didn't expect him to understand her point of view. Or even if he did, she definitely didn't think he would admit to it.

"Ani," Alana got her sister's attention. "Could you get a bottle of water for me?"

"Sure."

"Thanks."

"Why do you call her that?"

"There's this concept called nicknames, where you take someone's given name and shorten it."

Dylan rolled his eyes. "Smartass. Why Ani? And why is it always when you want her to do something for you?"

Alana shrugged. "She always seemed like more of an Ana or Ani than a Stasia or Stacie. And uh, I don't know. Old habits die hard, I guess."

"Okay, wait," he seemed sheepish. "One more question."

She stared at him while she waited for him to ask the question.

"How do you pronounce her name?" He practically whispered.

"Oh, my god." She chuckled.

"Is it Ana-stay-sha or Ana-stah-sia? I asked her when we first met, but she said it doesn't matter."

Alana figured she'd be nice and tell him the truth...for Ana's sake of course. "She'll answer to both, but our parents intended on it being Ana-stah-sia."

Dylan nodded. He wanted to say thanks, but his pride was getting in the way. It was already wounded from asking about the pronunciation. He couldn't make it worse.

"But most people just call her Ana. Although," Alana smiled a little as she remembered something, "I used to call her Stella when we were younger."

"And I hated it," Ana said, overhearing the tail end of the conversation as she entered the living room.

"How do you get Stella from Anastasia?" He pronounced her name properly, causing both sisters to smile.

"I couldn't pronounce her name and would end up calling her Sta, which ma said sounded like star. She started telling dad and said that Stella was a cute name. I think if we had another sister, they would've named her Stella or would've at least considered it. So I think I thought her name was Stella, so I called her that for a few years."

"I kept trying to tell her that it wasn't my name, but she wasn't having it and insisted on calling me that."

"I think it's a cute name," Dylan commented.

"Of course you do," Ana said exasperatedly but fondly.