I’m doing something that I haven’t done in a really long time, and I know I’m probably going to regret it tomorrow, but I’m meeting my younger sister Jana for lunch. I may be three years older than her, but she has always been smarter, more mature, and more successful than I ever have, and she never lets me forget it.

“Has a waiter come over yet?” she asks, while plopping her overpriced handbag on the table.

“Hello to you too, Jana.”

“Oh yeah, hi. Happy New Year and all of that. Sorry that I’m a little snappy, but I’m hungry as hell. I had a really long class this morning and skipped breakfast. The professor I work for is so demanding. You’re so lucky you didn’t pursue this type of career path, Jade.”

I have the strongest urge to pluck my sister in the middle of her forehead like I did when we were kids. Jana enjoys throwing in my face any chance she can how she’s a teaching assistant for a prominent professor at Temple University, while passively aggressively reminding me of how I barely made it out of high school algebra.

“The server said he’d be right back,” I say dryly.

“Is the service here okay?”

She looks around with her nose turned up as if my selection of restaurant is beneath her. As if she has no recollection of how our parents idea of dinner out was a Friday night at McDonald’s.

“It’s fine,” I say with an attitude. “I’ve eaten here twice before with Roman. You know him right? My rich boss.”

“Yes, yes, Jade. I’m well aware.”

After I flag down our server, a very sluggish boy with freckles and a sandy brown Mohawk (my sister probably isn’t too far off about the service here) takes our order.

“Still eating salads every meal I see.”

“That’s right,” I reply smirking. “I need to keep my girlish figure.”

This is one of the other things between us. Jana is about twenty-five pounds overweight, and I’ve always been small and pretty fit, which I attribute to a mixture of good genes, plenty of exercise and a decent diet.

“You could stand to eat a burger or two. You look thin. Too thin. Is that boss of yours working you too hard?”

Jana always tells me stuff like this. I’m used to it by now. That’s Jana speak for you look better than me, bitch.

“I helped him plan a very romantic proposal to his girlfriend last week, but other than that, work is pretty easy going nowadays.”

Our waiter brings us both glasses of ice water with lemon wedges and also a Sprite for Jana. I play around with the lemon inside of my glass as I wait for Jana to get to the real point of this lunch. There’s always a point.

“So ... I saw Dad the other day.”

I should have seen this coming, but if she was trying to spring a Daddy conversation on me, she should have taken me out for drinks not lunch. I need to be totally trashed to talk about that bastard.

“So.”

“I think he may be sick. Seriously sick.”

I twirl the ice around in my water with the straw, watching as bits of lemon pulp swirl around inside, turning my water cloudy. Like my mood.

“So.”

“So … I think you should go see him.”

“And why would I do that?”

“So he can apologize to you before he leaves this earth, which by the looks of him is going to be relatively soon.”

I take a long sip of my water. Staring at my sister like the unbelievable turncoat that she is.

“Maybe you were too young to really remember him at his worst, Jana. So I’m going to chalk this conversation up to your youth and ignorance, but let me tell you something …”

I pull my straw out and point it defiantly at her. She watches as drops of lemon water drip down on the table, driving her absolutely nuts.

“Our father is a motherfucker, and I don’t care if he’s gasping his last breaths right this very minute. I have no interest in visiting him, talking to him, and certainly no interest in forgiving him.”

Her eyes bulge.

“Gosh, Jade, you’re so nasty when you’re hungry. Where is Mohawk dude with our food? This place is so slow.”

“It’s worth the wait.”

I have a bad habit of sitting on my phone, and cracking the screen at least twice a year. I really need to carry a bag, but I’m a bit of a tomboy and never really got used to them. They just get in my way.

I feel my phone buzzing in the back pocket of my jeans. It’s just a feeling, but I think I already know who it is. I thought he had backed off for a while, but now I’m realizing that was just the calm before the storm. He’s relentless now.

King Kong: You still avoiding me?

Me: No

King Kong: You’re not?

Me: I was never avoiding you. I haven’t even been thinking about you.

King Kong: Now we both know that’s a lie.

Me: I’m busy right now. Leave me alone.

King Kong: Busy doing what?

Me: Lunch

King Kong: With who?

Me: My lover. A famous Brazilian soccer player. You don’t know him.

King Kong: That’s a very specific fantasy lover :)

Me: Do you know a real one then? I’d love to meet him.

King Kong: I’m going to ignore that.

“Are you going to text your fuck buddy during our entire lunch?” Jana interrupts our text exchange like a splash of cold water.

“What are you talking about? Fuck buddy,” I mutter.

“I can tell by your facial expressions that you’re texting a man. A man whom you have either fucked or want to fuck. You’re smiling quite devilishly.”

“Lower your voice,” I demand.

“Am I wrong?”

“It’s just one of the other guys I work for.”

“One of those hot twins? Oh my God, are you sleeping with one of them now?”

“They aren’t twins,” I say flatly. “They’re nothing alike.”

“Oh, I just assumed. Well which one are you messing around with?”

“We’re not messing around.”

“Which one were you just angry texting then?”

I sigh.

“The older one.”

King Kong: You still there?

Me: What. Do. You. Want.

King Kong: You know what I want.

Me: Is this about Baltimore?

King Kong: It’s about me inside of you in Baltimore.

Ugh, he really won’t let this shit go, and I’m just about sick of it. I went to the harbor on a fool’s errand, but still, it was completely my own business. Then here he comes running after me. Inserting himself in my damn business. Okay so maybe I did slip and fall on his dick in a Baltimore hotel, but while I may not have Jana’s book smarts, I have plenty of common sense, and I know better than to do that silly shit twice.

Not going to happen.

No matter how much he pushes the issue.

Me: Stop texting me about this. We have to work together.

King Kong: Or I can work that tight pussy of yours again.

I’m erasing these messages as soon as I get up from this table.

He is so vulgar.

Me: You didn’t work it well before, so I pass.

King Kong: Such the little liar. You better bring your sweet little ass to the club by nine, or you and I are going to have a much bigger problem than my dick in your mouth.

Oh my God, I can’t stand him. The worst mistake I ever made was spreading my legs for that arrogant, computer hacking, asshole. I mean seriously. He’s touched in the head. Completely nuts.

“Where is our damn food?” I slam my phone down on the table livid by the exchange I’ve just had with Camden and irritated that it takes thirty minutes to get a chicken Caesar salad in this place.

“Excuse me!” Jana turns around and calls out to a group of servers who are by the register. “Somebody better bring us our food real soon or somebody’s going to catch a murder charge.”

I can’t help but laugh. Jana can be pretentious, and a pain in my ass, but sometimes I forget that she and I were raised in the same dysfunctional home. Sometimes some of that fire bred into us kicks in. Her approach works too, because lo and behold our food, which evidently had been ready and waiting for Mohawk to pick up arrives.

“Sorry ’bout that,” Mohawk apologizes. “We’re short staffed today.”

“Uh, huh,” my sister says unconvinced. “Can you please just bring us some ketchup and some extra napkins? Like right now?” she snaps.

“Of course.” He raises one of his eyebrows at that finger snap. “I’ll be right back with that.”

“He’s going to spit in your ketchup.” I chuckle. “This is a nice restaurant. It will be easy for him to do it because they bring it in a little dish, not a bottle, and he’s pissed with all that finger snapping of yours.”

“Nice restaurant my ass.”

I take a bite of my salad. It’s delicious like I remembered. They make a great Caesar dressing here. No one can pick an out of the way restaurant with great food like Roman.

“So how’s school?” I ask, sincerely wanting to know.

“Professor Owens is working my ass off of course. So I’ve been staying up all night grading tons of papers, and he keeps taking all the credit.”

“Well isn’t that what teaching assistants do?”

“Yeah, but now that I am one, I see the gross inequality of it all. Seems like everyone in academia works their asses off when they’re young, so that one day they can sit back and not have to work at all when they’re forty. It’s called tenure.”

“Isn’t that what you want?”

“I guess so. Tenure is part of my fifteen-year plan. Guess I shouldn’t deviate from it now.”

“Guess not.”

“So tell me everything.”

“Tell you what?”

“Tell me everything about the twin.”

“Not a twin,” I say annoyed. I’ve told her that a million times before.

“Right. What’s his name?”

“Camden.”

“Right. So tell me about him.”

“There’s nothing to tell, Jana. You’re looking for some interesting love story, but you know that I don’t do relationships.”

“I know you haven’t had any relationships since Tyson, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t. For God’s sake, Jade, you two were only kids then.”

“I understand that, but it doesn’t really matter. I have zero interest in ties or relationships. I work at a place where I meet sexy, amazing men every night. Who wants to be tied down to one man when I’m always in the middle of the best smorgasbord ever?”

Jana puts her fork down for a moment.

“Not every man is horrible, Jade.”

I don’t look at her and continue eating.

“I never said they were.”

“Mom wouldn’t want you sleeping with every Tom, Dick and Harry.”

This would be the second time I’ve been called a whore in three months.

“Is that what you think of me, Jana? You think I’m a whore?” I ask defensively.

“Of course not.”

“And why bring our mother into this?”

Our mother died when we were just kids from ovarian cancer. She was a warrior. A saint. Bringing her up is just fighting dirty.

“I’m not. I’m sorry I said anything. Just tell me about your boss. I want to know why after he texts you, something lights up inside of you. Like sparklers.”

“You watch way too much television. I’m just annoyed. There is nothing lighting up inside of me.”

“Then why does he annoy you so much?”

Jana uses her fingers to form air quote signs while saying the word annoy. Did I mention that my sister is a psychology graduate student? On track to having a rewarding research and teaching career.

“Because he won’t leave me alone.”

“In a creepy way?”

“No, not like that.”

I’ve called him a creep before, but I’m not going to let my sister think he’s one.

“Did you sleep with him?”

Might as well confess. She already thinks I’m a slut.

“Yes.”

“Does he want seconds?”

“I don’t know what he wants.”

“Ah, so that’s it. He doesn’t just want your body, he wants more.”

“He doesn’t want more. He’s just playing around. He’s never been in a serious relationship in his life.”

“Ohhh, so he’s damaged just like you.”

“I don’t think he’s damaged, and neither am I by the way.”

“What’s wrong with him then?”

I might as well tell her. She won’t stop asking questions.

“I’ve known him for a long time, Jana. He knows all about Tyson. He was there when it all went down, and Rome got me out of there.”

Jana looks down at her plate. This is exactly why I didn’t want to talk about this. Anytime I mention Tyson, this guilty look spreads across her face. She and I had a falling out back then. She told me, begged me, many times over to leave my ex, but I wouldn’t. At the time I felt trapped. At the time I thought that if I left him, that no one would love me again. My warped thinking and inability to get out of my toxic relationship created a wedge between me and my sister, and we stopped communicating for a long time.

That’s why she thinks she failed me, because she wasn’t around to help me when the shit really hit the fan. But I don’t feel that way at all. She’s three years younger than me, our mother was dead, and she was really a kid. It was my job to take care of her and look out for her. Not the other way around.

Unfortunately her guilt, our sibling rivalry, and my inability to put up with a lot of her passive aggressive bullshit is why I have to keep a certain amount of distance from her. I love her, but it’s best that we talk occasionally and see each other rarely. Especially since she started speaking to our father again. I want nothing to do with that.

“So are you embarrassed that he knows about that part of your past or something?”

“I’m not embarrassed about anything, Jana. I’ve accepted that I’ve made some bad choices. Everyone has. I’m just saying that we know so much about each other. Too much.”

“You must be really attracted to him then.”

“What? Why do you say that?”

“After everything you just said about what he’s seen, and how much he knows, you still slept with him. That tells me a lot.”

“We all have slip ups now and then.”

“I don’t believe in accidents, Jade, only fate.”