Midnight Kiss

Chapter Nine

(Word Count: 1937)

Harper stood at the front door of her parent's home, the snow dropping in her hair and face, wondering how she badly the relationship she had with her sister would be destroyed by the end of the night. Everything in her begged Harper to run away to save face; even the heels of her feet kept rising, causing her to force them down to the cold pavement. 

Problems weren't normally something she ran away from, but tried her best to face head on. But this was no ordinary problem.

When a car door slammed behind her, Harper turned to see if it was Layla or her brother arriving, but her lips parted at the sight of James as he stood by his car staring back at her. 

"She called me about an hour ago and asked me to come," James explained, stepping away from his car and up the paved walkway. 

A grimace took over Harpers face and she swallowed hard as she looked back at the house, then again at him. "Why?"

James simply shrugged a response. 

Before they could dissect what was happening, the front door flew open and Layla stood there, her face expressionless, but twisting the ring she'd received as a high school graduation present around and around her finger as she rocked back and forth. "Thanks for coming," she mumbled under her breath. 

As Harper stared at her sister, she looked almost as if she was about to puke. Whatever news she was going to share was something big and scary to speak aloud. Suddenly what Harper intended to reveal didn't feel so big by comparison as heartfelt worry for Layla took over. "You two should come in. It's cold out here."

With that, Layla turned right back around and Harper spared James one last glance, noticing the worry on his own face, before she followed her sister inside. 

Harper dropped her coat on the floor by the coat rack and began to take off her coat when James came in behind her and helped her remove it, closing the door with his foot. 

"Are you as freaked out as I am," he whispered in her ear. 

Feeling eyes on her, Harper just nodded and watched as he hung up her coat before taking off her own. 

Everyone was already seated in the living room, pale faces on every last one of them. Harper took a seat by her mother and James sat next to her. The feel of the room was eerie, so different from the normal warm and welcoming feeling the house possessed. All Harper could do was repeat, 'Please don't be cancer' in her head like skipping track. 

Layla closed her eyes and sucked in a breath through her nose, then released it from her mouth. When her eyes opened again, she took the last available chair which faced them all. "Please understand that I'm the same person I've always been. Nothing about me has changed and I hope by the end of this, your love for me doesn't either."

Nothing about her sister has changed, which meant it couldn't be cancer. Harper let out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding in, as did the rest of the room, their minds appearing to have gone a similar path as her own. 

"When I cheated on James last year," Layla began, causing James to squirm next to her, "it wasn't with a man."

"So you aren't dying and you haven't killed anyone?" her mother asked loudly by her side. 

Layla shook her head. "No."

Her mom's hand reached out toward her father, who was on the adjacent loveseat, and he grasped it with his own. "Oh, thank god, John, she's just a lesbian."

"When she walked in looking like she was going to pass out, I was honestly expecting the worst. Then she told me she invited James over, and I thought for sure she was going to tell us she had eight months to live or something."