Free Tasting Never by C. M. Stunich Page B

thrilled to hear
    from you.” Lacey grabs her hair and twists it into a bun on
    the back of her head. As she does this, she watches me tack pictures
    to my wall. There are hundreds of them, and I'm determined to hang
    them all up. I've been working on this for days, plastering the wall
    next to my bed and planning to continue until I get to the closet.
    Lacey hasn't asked about them, but I saw her looking when she thought
    I was sleeping last night, using her phone as a flashlight.
    “ These
are my sisters,” I tell Lacey who raises her pale eyebrows.
I've never told her about them. Not once. She only knows a little
about my mom because she found my belly dancing costumes stuffed in
the back of the closet. To assuage her curiosity, I had to tell her
something. “Beth is the oldest.” I pause and am royally
pissed at myself for having to calculate my sister's age in my head.
This is just something I should know without thinking. “I
guess now she'd be about twenty-three.” I point to a picture
of a pretty girl with copper hair and a smile that could disarm even
the toughest heart. Beth. God, it's hard to miss someone so much
and hate them at the same time. It's a disconcerting feeling. “I'm
next in the lineup.” I move my finger across the wall like a
pointer until I find a picture of me at sixteen. Lacey stands up and
squeals.
    “ You
were so cute!” she says as picks at the edge of the photo with
her nails. They're painted bright yellow this week and while I find
them obnoxious, I keep catching Trini sucking on them and telling
Lacey how sexy they are. They're so goofy together that I have a
sneaking suspicion that they think they're in love. I can't judge if
they are or not; I'm not qualified, but if it's true, then I hope I
never fall into it because when they're together, they act like
idiots.
    “ Then
there's Jade who's … ” I count in my head again.
“Twenty. Zella who's nineteen. India would be sixteen now, I
guess.” I sigh and try not to imagine my little sisters too
clearly. The younger they were when I left, the more I miss them,
the less culpable I hold them for what happened. Beth, Jade, and
Zella are at least half responsible for me leaving. “Lettie is
thirteen and Lorri is ten.” I point them all out, a sea of
girls with pretty lips, pale skin, and eyes that sparkle with blue
and green flecks. We all look like our mother, like a sea of copper
haired clones. Except for Beth, Zella, and me, nobody shares the
same father. My mom's as big a whore as I am.
    I
drop the pictures to my bed and they flutter down to the red and
black comforter like a swarm of butterflies.
    Tears
are falling again, and I don't know why. I don't know anything
anymore. I thought I had things figured out, at least a little bit.
Stay busy, find a reason to live in the morning, cry myself to sleep
at night. I didn't have friends, and I brushed bodies with bruised
souls. Now I can't even stomach the thought of sex and being alone
makes me physically ill.
    Ty
has changed me; Lacey has changed me; I'm changing myself. Just
everything's changing, and I don't know how to deal. It's happening
fast, too fast for me to follow. I don't like it. I don't feel in
control now. The world is spinning, and I can't stop it, no matter
how hard I try.
    “ Hey,”
Lacey says as she scoops the photos into a neat stack and sets them
on the edge of her desk. “Why don't I blow off my date with
Trini tonight, and we'll go out, just me and you. No boys, no girls,
just a round of mini golf?”
    I
open my mouth to tell her how incredible that sounds when there's a
knock at the door.
    “ Just
a sec,” Lacey says as she touches my arm with her hand. “It's
probably just Trini.” She moves to the door and opens it
without bothering to ask who's there. Shame 'cause who's there is
Ty.
    He's
standing in the hallway with a blue T-shirt, a face full of silver
piercings and a pair of black