Page 43 of The Oath We Give

“I can’t believe you’re a vegetarian,” she grumbles around a mouthful of cardiac arrest. “Feels illegal.”

“You’re going to throw that up everywhere in five hours,” I say.

She has training at eight in the morning. If I was a parent, I might’ve told her to go back to sleep when she came into my living room wearing pajamas and sneakers, asking to go for food. However, I’m not her mother. I’m her sister.

Her slicked-back high ponytail bounces as she shakes her head, taking another bite to prove her point. Lilac is an incredible tennis player. The best Ponderosa High has seen probably ever, and it’s not because it’s a natural gift.

She’s disciplined beyond measure, focused and determined to be the best.

It’s a trait we got from our father. However, she’s able to balance her desire for success and love of life much better than myself or our paternal parent.

On the occasions that she’s craving burgers, I oblige. Even though it’s three in the morning and I hate Tillie’s. She deserves brief moments of happiness like these.

“Your backhand looked good yesterday.”

“Thanks.” She grins, swallowing her food. “Coach says if I keep up this pace, I’ll make nationals again.”

School just ended, but her training didn’t. April is the start of her off-season, and she has all summer to work before games start back up. The routine she follows during the off-season is strict, but she likes it.

I make sure I’m there to pick her up, get her fed. Sometimes I take her back to the glass mansion where her parents live, but most of the time, she’s with me, living comfortably in my spare bedroom.

Regina and James only want her home when there is company over, anyway.

“Of course you will. You’re the best tennis player I know.”

She rolls her eyes, sitting down her burger and wiping her hands so she can pick up her phone, slammed with a million notifications. What is it about being a teenager and having so many people to talk to?

Do you grow up and just crave quiet?

Or do we grow apart from people out of survival?

“I’m the only tennis player you know, Cora.”

Lilac grins at her screen, biting at her bottom lip before her fingers fly across the keys. Determined to text back as quickly as possible, it seems. There is only one reason you look at a phone like that, and it’s not cat memes.

“Who’s the boy?” I question, lifting an eyebrow playfully.

A sly smile spreads across her lips. “Girl.”

I pick up another fry, dipping it into a glass of vanilla milkshake in front of me.

“Oh? I thought you swore off girls after what happened with Brit?”

She waves me off. “That was three months ago. I’m over it. We weren’t exclusive, anyway.”

I laugh at how veryherthat answer is.

Since Lilac could talk, she was her own little person, unbothered by the limits and rules the world gave her. When I try to remember things before being kidnapped, the only things I have in my mind are of her.

She took her first steps at ten months because she refused to crawl. I’d just turned six, and she’d taken five steps forward before tumbling into my lanky arms. We both ended up on the floor.

I helped her pull out her first tooth when she was five. I’d seen the string and doorknob trick on the internet. When I tried slamming the door to yank it out, she screamed, demanding to do it herself. Regina was pissed about the blood on her floor. We giggled about it under the covers that night.

Until I was eighteen, I did her hair for every occasion. Covered her knees with Band-Aids when she thought she wanted to be a professional skateboarder. Taught her how to put on makeup and navigate the art of periods. I held her hand through every nightmare, chased away the monster under her bed, and spent hours letting her hit tennis balls at me like a human target.

A reporter once asked me in a cafe what I missed most those two years I was gone.

I threw my iced coffee in his face, and later, when I cooled down, I thought of my answer.