Rae
I moved into my father’s new house on a Thursday and decided the same night I was going to have his wife’s daughter.
Claire.
Straight. Cold. A boyfriend who texted her every hour. The kind of pretty that looked expensive even in a towel. I had seen her once at the wedding, in a dress that made my mouth go dry, and she had called me sister like she was hanging a lock on a door.
I was twenty. I liked girls. I did not like being locked out.
The guest room wasn’t ready. Paint fumes. A mattress still in plastic. Mom — her mom, my new one — laughed it off and said Claire would share for two nights. Claire’s mouth did something tight and polite in front of the parents. The second they went downstairs she looked at my bag on her carpet like it had teeth.
“You get the floor.”
“There’s a
