I'll Stop the World (100)

Her heart jumped and strained against the walls of her chest like an anxious dog on a leash. She was scared, but also a little excited. Shawn had understood. Maybe Rose would, too. And once Rose knew, all the most important people in Lisa’s life—well, except her mom, but that was a bridge Lisa wasn’t ready to cross yet—would know who she really was. No more hiding and pretending, at least with a couple of people.

Lisa imagined holding Charlene’s hand in a place where people could actually see them, and butterflies took flight in her stomach.

She heard the shower turn off, and sprang up from the table. Rushing past her mom and Veronica and the two squirming babies in the living room—“Careful!” her mom called out when Lisa skipped over a crawling Emmie—Lisa met Rose as she emerged from the bathroom at the top of the stairs, her hair wrapped in a purple towel. “Can we talk?” Lisa asked breathlessly.

“Oh,” Rose said, seeming a little taken aback. “I was actually going to—”

“It’s important,” Lisa said. She was determined not to let another chance pass them by. “Please?”

Rose bit her lip, then nodded. After taking a minute to throw on a pair of sweats and a T-shirt, she walked into Lisa’s room and closed the door. They perched facing one another on the edge of her bed, each with one leg pulled up and the other dangling toward the floor, like they had so many times over the years, even before they were living down the hall from each other.

Lisa took a deep breath, then told her everything. It was easier the second time, especially considering how well Shawn had taken it. The first time, it’d been terrifying, but also freeing. This time, that free feeling came earlier, outweighing the terror.

As she spoke, she watched Rose closely, trying to gauge her reaction. Was she surprised? Confused? Disgusted? The words came easier this time, but the heart-pounding anticipation was the same.

It didn’t help that she couldn’t read her sister’s face. Rose sat motionless and expressionless, wet hair dripping onto her shirt.

When Lisa finished, she held her breath. For long seconds, no one spoke. “So,” Lisa said hesitantly, “what do you think?”

“Do you care?” Rose’s tone was icy.

“What?” Lisa blinked, confused. “Of course I do. That’s why I told you. You’re my sister.”

“Yeah. I’m your sister. We always said we could tell each other anything. I always tell you everything. But you’ve been lying about this to me for how long? Months? Years?”

“That’s not fair,” Lisa said, heat creeping up her neck. Her fingers curled so her nails dug into her palms. She had just shown Rose the most vulnerable part of herself, a part practically no one else had ever seen, and this was her response? “You know this isn’t like your crush on Noah or stealing earrings from the mall. I had to figure out a lot of stuff for myself first. And once I was ready, you’re one of the first people I told. And one of the only people I plan on telling, at least for now. Which, I’ll point out, is a lot more than you’ve been sharing with me lately.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Lisa shook her head, her jaw hanging open incredulously. Was Rose even listening to herself right now? “Have any other pen pals that’ll be dropping by this semester?”

“That is completely different.”

“How? The way I see it, you don’t get to be mad at me for not telling you absolutely everything going on in my life when you’ve had this whole secret boyfriend—”

“He is not my boyfriend.”

“Does he know that? Guys don’t typically just write letters or drop in for surprise visits to see girls they aren’t into.”

“Trust me, it’s not like that.”

Lisa stood, throwing up her hands. “Trust you? Rose, you’ve barely spoken to me all week. You never said one word about this guy to me until he was suddenly here. And yet you have the nerve to accuse me of keeping things from you?”

“It’s not the same thing!”

Lisa was starting to get angry now. “Do you have any idea how hard this has been for me? How lonely? How scary? I have agonized over this for months, over what it meant for me and my life and my future. And I didn’t have anyone I could talk to about it, except Charlene. You’re allowed to have crushes that you obsess about and analyze to death and talk about all the time. I’m not. I can’t say anything to anyone without risking everything. I didn’t talk to you about it because I was scared. I didn’t know how you’d react.” She crossed her arms. “I guess I was right. You don’t get it.”

“You didn’t give me a chance to get it!” Rose was standing now, too, her face growing redder by the second. “I may not know how it feels to go through what you’re going through, but I would’ve at least tried. Because I’m your sister. And I thought that meant something.”

Lisa glared at her for a second, then grabbed her purse from her nightstand and stomped toward the door. But when her hand touched the knob, she hesitated. She couldn’t let Rose have the last word. Not about this.

She whirled to face Rose, tears stinging her eyes. “You are one of the first people I told the biggest, scariest secret of my life. If that doesn’t show that you’re important to me, I don’t know what does. But you have made it extremely clear that I am obviously not important to you.”