A Greater Good (girlxgirl)

The Grave of Muppins

The pictures of the White family were just that, incredibly white. Mark, Steph, Ricky and Everlyn all smiled down at me along the hallway looking incredibly happy about something. I slowed down to a stop in front of the picture I used to tease Everlyn about, she was holding onto a teddy bear and smiling into the camera wearing just her underwear. I smiled at it and moved onto the next picture, I was killing time trying to avoid being around James and Everlyn, I was trying to come up with excuses in my head but nothing relating to work would be enough because they all knew that on Saturdays my partner worked even in serious situations. I moved onto a picture of Ricky with one ear pierced smiling into the camera from under the bonnet of a car, grease smeared up his arms, I smiled at him.

"I know."

I stumbled backwards and held my heart, James had appeared silently in the hallway behind me. I exhaled and shook my head at him, what he'd said didn't even sink in because of the fright he'd given me.

"Jesus fucking Christ, James! Don't do that, man!"

He didn't smile or act amused. "I know," he repeated.

I knew it was probably about Everlyn, but I was clueless to what he knew. I shook my head and smiled. "Come again."

"I know about you and Everlyn," he said bluntly. He didn't seem mad, just worn out like he'd been on a great big goose chase.

"What about Everlyn and I?" I played.

"Stop fucking me around, Jane," he spat. "I know that you two were a thing, I know you two used to fucking... do whatever!"

I raised an eyebrow. "And?"

"Well why wouldn't you tell me?" He was angry now and betrayed.

"Because it was nothing," I lied easily, I'd told myself it for years so I'd grown accustomed to saying it aloud. "Everlyn's straight, James, you don't have to worry."

"She can't be too straight if she said it was serious to her!" I was kind of shocked that I was having the conversation so I just watched as James raked a hand through his hair. "Oh my god, I can't have just said that! I couldn't careless if she wasn't straight, I just can't believe that her old girlfriend was my own sister."

I shook my head again. "James, we weren't girlfriends," I said seriously. 

"That why you were so close!" he said triumphantly, he'd just solved the puzzle he'd been working on since that Christmas and now he was winding himself up. "You were always on your own with her, always giggling about some joke with her, always looking at her like some goddess."

Well she is, I wanted to retort, but I knew better because James was getting blotchy cheeks and looking like he was at the end of his rope.

"Fucking hell!" I said firmly. "James, we were just mucking about, it wasn't serious."

"She told me it was!"

"Well maybe to her, but not to me. We're friends, we're nothing more than friends."

His chest was heaving and he stared at me for a long time. "Promise?"

"Promise," I lied easily again. I was good at lying, I spent most days talking to liars, I'd picked up a few tricks. 

"Do you swear on the grave of Muppins?"

Muppins? God fucking damn it, James! He was bringing back our childhood truth telling system based on the principle that we couldn't lie if we swore on the grave of Muppins (our dead mangy cat) and if we did, he would haunt us. It was a simpler time when child innocence ruled all. Swearing on the grave of Muppins was calling the end of James and I even with the fact that we'd spent our whole childhood together. Whatever I replied was going to change a dyanmic between us, he would go into a marriage and I would resent him for having the girl I loved or things would end between him and Everlyn and he would resent me. But it was the rule of Muppins, how could I betray it?

"I swear on the grave of Muppins," I said in an honest tone.

How could I have betrayed it? Easy, child innocence doesn't rule all in the adult world where sisters screw their brother's fiancees.