Enough | ✔️

+ 26 +

"You suck," I scoff at the screen, Lara's ear-to-ear grin as visible as the moon in the deep of night.

A smirk graces her pink-lipsticked lips, "At least I don't suck my teacher's-"

"LARA!" I quickly yell, jaw glued to the floor in a desperate attempt to stop her sentence, "Remind me how you're my sister?!"

She smiles, her entertainment audible in her laugh even as it crackles through a bad connection. I groan and let my head drop into my hands, a crazy concoction of emotions swirling in my stomach.

After Hannah abandoned me yesterday, I was stuck alone with Slater in what may have been the most uncomfortable, pin-drop silence in the history of the universe. He is clearly taking the ignore-the-rejection-conversation-and-pretend-we-get-along route, whereas I'm going more of the further-embarrass-myself-at-every-opportunity-and-pretend-I-never-liked-you route.

To be honest, neither are working.

Every now and then I'll catch his eye when his walls are down and I'll see an exact reflection of what's in mine. I can't decide whether it's reassuring or terrifying.

In one last attempt at a distraction, I Skyped Lara. It always surprises me just how easily it is to forget your troubles when you're surrounded by people you love.

"Quo, you zoned out?"

I drag my wandering thoughts back to reality and smile apologetically, "Sorry. What, Lara?"

My older sister rolls her eyes playfully, tucking a flyaway of dirty blonde hair behind her ear.

"Hartley got you hot and bothered?" she sniggers, "And I said, I have something important to tell you. Can I come over soon?"

I flat-out mute her first sentence and feel my eyes light up like a carved pumpkin at her question.

"Really? Yes, of course!" I grin, unable to contain my anticipation as I sit up and reposition the laptop on my legs.

She smiles one of those smiles that only a Lara can pull off - one of those smiles that is full of relief and cuddly warm hugs and fluffy bears and leprechauns and unicorns farting rainbows. It's contagious and makes me want to reach through the screen and hug her.

A sudden thought dampens my mood, "Aren't you busy with your wedding though?"

I realise how much offence she could take to my abrupt sadness, "Sorry, I didn't mean to sound so upset. I love you and Bennett, but I don't want to take you away from any planning you might have."

She laughs, "I'm doing fine, Quorra. Even though we decided to have a wedding sooner than most couples, I still have months to prepare. I think I'm okay to spend one day with my baby sister."

"I'm not a baby," I grumble, narrowing my eyes into unamused slits.

Something flashes across her eyes. I move closer to my screen, as if a shorter distance would allow me to decipher what she's thinking. Did I say something?

The emotion is gone as fast as it appeared, replaced by a blinding beam, "Well you are my younger sister, so you are still closer to a baby than me. How is next week?"

I decide not to comment on how she's closer to death than me, yet I don't call her 'grandma', instead grinning back at her.

"That's awesome. I hope the big thing you need to tell me isn't that you want to disown me or something," I joke, relieved as she shakes her head at my quirks.

"Of course not; we are sisters for life, Quo."

My heart warms in my chest.

A second later, Lara fake-vomits, ending the touching moment. I laugh at her low tolerance for sappiness in comparison to mine. I've trained for many years with cliché romance novels and movies that make me want to cry my heart out and never fall in love.