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Chapter 19

Claire

Tori's party was coming up and I found myself thinking about Blair. My sister never left our house. She was always holed up in her room on her laptop. Because of that, I found myself walking to her room, hoping she'd come.

Reaching her room, I knocked on the door and waited for Blair to tell me to come in. She did after a moments pause, and I opened the door and stepped in, spotting her laying on her bed. She was on her laptop - as expected. But what I didn't expect was the silence that lasted a minute as I stood at her door, waiting for her to say something.

When she didn't say anything, I finally said, "Hey."

"Hi," she said flatly, leaving me frowning.

I chose to ignore her dull reply because I knew Blair had these moods. Some days she was more willing to speak than others. I was guessing this was one of the days where she wasn't.

"So, Tori's hosting a party," I said, finding myself nervous. "I think you should come."

"No," Blair said, bluntly, catching me off guard.

Blair's eyes stayed glued to her laptop and I stared at her, wondering what was going on. She was acting hostile and I had a bad feeling it wasn't because she was in a bad mood. A part of me felt like it was personal.

"Why not?" I asked. "I know you don't really party and all, but I think it'll be fun. We can go together and hang out. I swear you don't need to dance, I... I just want to hang out with you outside of home for once."

"I'm not interested," Blair said, leaving me hurting.

I didn't know what was up with her, but her attitude hurt. It made me feel stupid because I felt like I was always trying to fix things between us, but Blair never seemed to care. I felt like she didn't care about me, which left me tearing up. It hurt to know the people you cared about didn't always care about you.

"I'm just trying to make things go back to the way they were," I said helplessly. "I... Don't you want us to be like how we used to be? Why don't you try and make it seem like you actually want me back in your life?"

Blair finally looked at me. Her face was expressionless and I stared at her, hoping my tears wouldn't spill out of my eyes. Sometimes I hated how emotional I could be. It made me feel dumb because I always tried to be positive, so I became disappointed in myself whenever I let life get me down.

"You can't fix what's broken," Blair said, causing my heart to stop momentarily. "I'm sorry Claire, but I guess that's why I think there's no point in fixing what we had."

Stunned, I stared at her for a moment. I couldn't believe this was how she felt. After all of the hope I had that we would go back to being best friends, I couldn't believe Blair's negative mindset. Instead of getting sadder, I found myself growing angry.

"Yes, you can fix what's broken," I said, crossing my arms over my chest. "Fine, it won't be the same as it was before. I know that, I understand that, but that doesn't mean you can't try to fix something as much as you can."

"It's pointless Claire," Blair said, sighing. "We're two different people now. We're nothing alike. I'm not saying we can't be civilized with each other, but we won't be close again. It's just not possible."

"But that's exactly why we can get close again. We're two new people, two people who won't make the mistakes we made in the past." I threw my arms up, wishing she'd understand. "We don't need to go back to the past, what I want is a fresh start with you. I want to get to know and get close to the new you."

Blair looked away from me. She didn't say anything to me and I stared at her, wondering what had happened. We had been fine for weeks. Happily, we had been switching places and talking more frequently, but for some reason Blair was acting really strange. It left me uneasy, but I hoped to make everything right again.

"Claire, some of the things you've done hurt me," Blair whispered so quietly that I barely caught it. "I... I'm sorry, but I can't just forget about certain things."

Her words surprised me, but I didn't deny them. I had been horrible to Blair. Especially in freshman year when I had pushed her away and tried to pretend she wasn't my sister, I had been cruel to her. Because of that, I understood where she was coming from. But, I wasn't going to let that get in the way.

"I know I've done some horrible things to you," I said quietly, hoping I sounded as sincere as my words were. "And I regret them. I seriously regret them every day. You don't understand Blair, my biggest mistake was cutting you off in the ninth grade."

Blair was staring at me and to my luck, her eyes softened. In that second, I knew I could get her to understand.

"I'm not perfect. I'm far from perfect, but I'm learning from my past mistakes," I said, eyes tearing up. "So can you blame me for wanting to fix my biggest mistake? Can you blame me for trying to make things right between us again?"

To my surprise, Blair's eyes began to tear up as well. She was staring at me, looking so sad that I wanted to run up to her and hug her. But knowing she hated hugging, I resisted and decided to admit what I had always felt.

"I miss my sister so much," I said softly. "I miss you so much that it hurts."

"Fine," Blair blurted out, surprising me. "I'll come, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry Claire."

She looked away from me and I knew she was trying to hide her emotions. I saw right through her, but I decided not to react. Knowing Blair, she liked to keep her emotions hidden.

But I was so thankful I had broken through to her. After so many years, I finally got Blair to show some sort of emotion towards our bond. I felt bittersweet at that, feeling bad for making my sister sad, but happy because she was finally going to try to make things better between us. Smiling at the thought, I found myself hoping that things would work out.