Walk Through Fire (Chaos #4)(132)

“Hmm... let’s see,” I began. “There was the moment when they picked me up and Logan had to use the bathroom before we went so he left me alone with the girls. This was when Cleo happily reacquainted herself with my new kittens and Zadie told me right to my face that cats were stupid and people who had them were even more stupid, not to mention, cat ladies were lame. She said this even though just the night before, before she remembered she was supposed to hate me, she’d fallen in love with the kittens on sight.”

“That ain’t so bad,” Elvira noted.

I looked to her. “Then there was the time when we were walking through the mall to get to the theater and Zadie and I were removed from her dad and sister and she told me that old ladies shouldn’t dress like I dressed, my clothes were too young, and I looked like a wannabe. There was also the time when we bought snacks for the movie and she noted her mother would never eat what I chose and that’s why her mother has a killer bod and I’m fat.”

“Yikes,” Tabby muttered.

“You aren’t fat,” Kellie snapped.

“What did High say about all this?” Tyra asked.

“Since she purposefully dumped her Sprite so it would hit my lap the night before,” I started, and all eyes at the table got big, “she learned and waited for times when Logan couldn’t hear and she did her best to do it when her sister couldn’t either.”

“Sticks and stones,” Elvira declared. “Girl, you gotta be tougher than that.”

I again looked to her. “Zadie sat across from me at lunch and kicked me the entire time. She got me in the shins so often, both are black and blue, and that is no joke.”

I held my leg out to the side, where Carissa was sitting. I had sheer black thigh-highs on but the bruises still could be seen.

“Holy cow, that is no joke,” she muttered in horror.

I kept on with my tales of woe.

“I was sitting next to Logan so I couldn’t adjust too much or he’d notice so I tucked my calves under the chair. That was when she kicked my knees.”

“Oh my God,” Kellie fumed. “What a brat!”

Absolutely.

It hurt to say but all evidence was pointing at the fact that it wasn’t that Zadie could be a brat.

She just was one.

“Not to mention,” I kept going, “any time she could get away with it, she gave me a look that told me she was plotting my murder. She sneezed into her hand once and immediately touched me, making it look like she was being nice but really rubbing her snot on the sleeve of a blouse. A blouse that’s dry clean only. And twice she gave me the finger.”

“I can’t believe this of Zadie,” Carissa said. “I’ve only met her a couple of times and she’s super cute.”

“And you didn’t tell High about any of this?” Tyra asked.

“No,” I answered.

“Why not?” Justine asked.

“Because he lost it during the Sprite incident and we left without even ordering food. He took us for takeaway Chipotle but only after giving Zadie a talking-to. It wasn’t pretty.”

“Good for him,” Elvira declared.

Normally, I would agree.

In the circumstances, I didn’t.

That day, with Zadie hiding her behavior, Logan had been happy. Straight out, not hiding it, had all his girls together, a biker stomping through the clouds in his motorcycle boots.

So it was also that I didn’t have the heart to ruin it for him.

“I’m not sure it was the right thing to do,” I said to Elvira. “It’s only given her more impetus to try to push my buttons. If he’d left the Sprite thing as being a possible accident and I’d been able to breeze through it, maybe I could have gotten through to her. Now it’s like she’s on a mission.”

“This isn’t okay behavior,” Tyra stated. “Including purposefully dumping a drink on your dad’s girlfriend. It’s good High sent that message.”

“You’re right, it’s not okay behavior,” I replied. “But it’s clear she didn’t get the message. And I broke through with Cleo. She isn’t texting me to make a date to bake cookies together but it’s not like she’s just tolerating me either. We have our moments and they don’t come often but it’s like night and day with Zadie.”

“What does Cleo think of what her little sister is doing?” Tabby asked.

“She doesn’t like it,” I answered. “But I’m not seeing any big sister sway between those two.”

The waitress arrived and set my drinks on the table while Lanie shared, “I see that. Zadie lives in her own world. Cleo’s a good kid through and through. She’d twist herself in knots for her mom or dad. Zadie’s kind of a princess.”

“Yeah,” Elvira agreed as I lifted a shot and threw it back. “It’s like Cleo senses her mom and dad weren’t happy, so she bent over backwards to be the good kid who’d make ’em that way. Zadie just thinks everyone exists to make her happy. It’s cute when you’re her age. Not so cute when you get older.”

As awful as it was to admit it, from what I’d noticed, this was the truth.

Cleo was alert, responsible, almost adult. She rushed in to help her dad any time there was even the minutest thing to assist with, like carrying our drinks and munchies at the theater or collecting the menus to hand to the waitress.