Sister Heat

The water was too hot. That was the first thing I noticed, the way it steamed and curled around my sister's shoulders like something alive. She'd left the bathroom door open a crack, just enough for the heat to bleed into the hallway where I stood with my back against the wall, a towel pressed to my chest.

I wasn't supposed to be there. That's what I told myself, anyway. The lie was thin as paper.

Through the gap I could see the curve of her spine, the way her wet hair stuck to the nape of her neck in dark ribbons. She was humming something off-key, some pop song I didn't recognize, and the sound of it made my throat tight. She had no idea I was watching. Or maybe she did. With Cassie, you could never be sure.

She reached for the shampoo bottle on the ledge and her arm stretched long and pale under the bathroom light. I watched the muscles move beneath her skin, the small dimple above her elbow, the way her fingers wrapped around the plastic. Everything about her was familiar. I'd memorized her a thousand times over the years, in a thousand casual ways that weren't casual at all.

The towel in my hands felt damp. I'd been standing there long enough that the steam had soaked through it.

"Jesus, Marcus, are you gonna stand there all night?"

Her voice cut through the sound of running water. She hadn't turned around. Hadn't stopped washing her hair. But there was a smile in her words, that teasing lilt she used when she knew she'd caught me at something.

I should have walked away. Should have gone back to my room, closed the door, put on headphones, done anything except what I did, which was nothing. I stayed rooted to the floorboards, listening to the water sluice down her back.

"You're dripping on the carpet," she said.

"I'm not."

"You are. I can hear it."

She was right. I looked down and saw the dark spots forming around my bare feet, the towel clutched in my fists like a confession. My face burned. Not from the steam.

Cassie turned off the water. The sudden silence was worse than the noise. She reached for her own towel, a faded pink thing that had been ours when we were kids, back when we shared everything without thinking about it. She wrapped it around herself and finally turned to face me.

Her eyes were the same brown as mine. People said we looked alike, which was true in the way that siblings often are, same nose, same stubborn chin, same way of tilting our heads when we were thinking. But she wore it differently. On her, the features softened into something that made strangers stop and stare. On me, they just looked tired.

"You're such a creep," she said. But she was smiling.

"I was just walking by."

"Walking by. For twenty minutes."

Had it been that long? I didn't know. Time did strange things when Cassie was involved. It stretched and compressed and lost all meaning. I'd noticed that when we were fifteen and she'd come home from summer camp with a new laugh and a new way of looking at me, like I was someone she'd just met and wanted to know better. That was the summer everything changed, though neither of us said it out loud.

"Mom's gonna be home soon," she said, pushing past me into the hallway. Her shoulder brushed my arm. The contact was brief, accidental, meaningless. My skin registered it anyway, filed it away with all the other moments I'd collected over the years.

"She said she was working late."

"She always says that."

Cassie disappeared into her bedroom. The door didn't close all the way. It never did.

I stood in the hallway for another minute, maybe two, listening to the sounds of her moving around. Drawers opening. The creak of her bed. The soft thud of clothes hitting the floor. I knew the geography of that room better than my own, knew which floorboard squeaked and which window stuck in humid weather. I'd spent years constructing excuses to be in there, borrowing books I didn't need, asking questions I already knew the answers to.

My phone buzzed in my pocket. A text from Derek, my roommate from last semester, asking if I wanted to come out. I typed back a no without thinking. He sent a string of question marks. I put the phone away.

The house was quiet except for the sounds from Cassie's room. Our mother had bought this place after the divorce, a small two-bedroom with thin walls and a backyard that was mostly weeds. We'd moved in when I was twelve and Cassie was ten, old enough to understand that our father wasn't coming back, young enough to still hope he might. He hadn't. The house had settled around us like a held breath, and we'd learned to live in the spaces between what was said and what wasn't.

I went to my room. Closed the door. Then opened it again, just a crack.

Old habits.

---

She came to my room that night, which wasn't unusual. Cassie had never learned to knock, had never understood the concept of privacy as anything other than a suggestion. She pushed open my door at eleven-thirty, wearing an oversized t-shirt and nothing else as far as I could tell, and flopped onto my bed like she owned it.

"I can't sleep," she announced.

I was at my desk, pretending to read. The book was open to the same page it had been for an hour. I hadn't absorbed a single word.

"That's a personal problem."

"Everything's a personal problem with you." She rolled onto her back and stared at the ceiling. "What are you reading?"

"Nothing."

"Looks like something."

I closed the book. The cover was worn, the spine cracked from use. It was a mystery novel I'd read three times already. I couldn't remember the plot.

Cassie stretched her arms above her head, and the t-shirt rode up her thighs. Pale skin. A small mole on her left hip that I'd noticed years ago and never forgotten. I looked away, then looked back. The looking away was for show. We both knew it.

"Remember when we were kids," she said, "and we used to have sleepovers in the living room? Blanket forts and all that."

"You were afraid of the dark."

"I was not."

"You were. You used to make me check under the couch every night."

She laughed, a low sound that vibrated through the mattress. "I was afraid of monsters. Not the dark. There's a difference."

I turned in my chair to face her. The lamplight made her hair glow, turning it the color of honey. She'd let it dry curly, and it fanned out around her head like a halo she didn't deserve. Cassie was many things, but angelic wasn't one of them.

"Why are you really here?" I asked.

She was quiet for a moment. Her fingers traced patterns on my comforter, idle shapes that didn't mean anything. Or meant everything. With her, it was hard to tell.

"I had a dream," she said finally. "A bad one."

"About what?"

"Doesn't matter."

"It matters if you came all the way down here."

She looked at me then, really looked, and I felt the weight of it in my chest. Cassie had a way of seeing through people, of finding the soft places and pressing just hard enough to hurt. She'd always been able to do that to me. Since we were kids. Since before I understood what it meant.

"I dreamed you left," she said. "You packed up your stuff and just... left. And I was here alone."

"I'm not going anywhere."

"You say that now."

"I mean it."

She sat up, and the t-shirt slipped off one shoulder. I saw the strap of her tank top underneath, thin and black against her skin. Of course she was wearing something under it. Of course. My relief was shameful in its intensity.

"Promise me," she said.

"Promise you what?"

"That you won't leave."

"That's a stupid promise. People leave. That's what they do."

"Not you."

The word hung between us, small and sharp. I thought about all the ways I could respond. Could tell her she was being dramatic. Could make a joke. Could pretend I didn't understand what she was really asking.

Instead I said, "Okay."

Her smile was slow and warm, like sunrise. She lay back down and patted the space beside her.

"Come here," she said.

"I have a chair."

"The chair's uncomfortable. I've sat in it."

"I'm fine."

"Marcus."

Just my name. That was all it took. I crossed the room and lay down next to her, careful to keep space between our bodies. The bed was small. There wasn't much space to keep.

She turned on her side to face me. Her breath smelled like mint toothpaste. Her eyes were dark and steady.

"This is nice," she said.

"This is weird."

"Everything's weird if you think about it too much."

She had a point. I tried not to think about it. I tried not to think about the warmth of her body through the thin cotton sheets, the way her toes brushed against my ankle, the fact that we'd done this a hundred times before and it had never felt like this. Like something about to break.

"Tell me a story," she said.

"What kind of story?"

"Any kind. You're good at stories."

I wasn't. I was good at reading them, collecting them, hiding inside them. But Cassie had always believed I was capable of more than I was. That was her gift. She saw potential in people that didn't exist, loved them for the person they could be instead of the person they were. It was why she had so many friends and why so many of them ended up disappointing her.

"Once upon a time," I started.

"Not that kind."

"Then what?"

She thought for a moment. Her fingers found the hem of my shirt and played with it, rolling the fabric between her thumb and forefinger. The touch was casual. It was nothing. It was everything.

"Tell me something true," she said.

I didn't know what to say. The truth was a dangerous thing between us, a minefield we'd learned to navigate without ever acknowledging the explosives. The truth was that I'd been in love with her since I was old enough to know what love was, and probably before that, too. The truth was that I'd kissed a girl last year and thought about Cassie the whole time. The truth was that I'd started avoiding her because being near her was becoming impossible, and then she'd noticed and started coming to me more, and now we were here, in my bed, her fingers on my shirt, and I couldn't breathe.

"The truth is I'm tired," I said.

She laughed. "That's not a story."

"It's all I've got."

She didn't push. That was the thing about Cassie. She knew when to stop. She knew when to let silence do the work. She let go of my shirt and turned onto her back, and we lay there side by side, staring at the ceiling, not touching, not speaking, and it was somehow more intimate than anything I'd ever done with anyone else.

After a while, her breathing slowed. I thought she was asleep. Then she said, very quietly, "I'm glad you're still here."

"Me too."

"Don't leave."

"I won't."

It was a lie. We both knew it. But some lies are necessary. Some lies are the only thing holding the world together.

---

The next morning, I woke up alone. Cassie's side of the bed was cold, the pillow still dented from her head. I lay there for a long time, listening to the sounds of the house. The shower running. The kettle whistling. The low murmur of the radio from the kitchen.

She'd made coffee. That was the first thing I noticed when I walked in. Two mugs on the counter, one black, one with too much cream and sugar. My mug. She'd remembered.

"Morning, sunshine," she said. She was at the table, still in her pajamas, scrolling through her phone. Her hair was wet from the shower, and she'd pulled it back into a messy bun that made her look younger than she was.

"You made coffee."

"Don't sound so surprised. I'm capable of basic human functions."

"You're capable of a lot of things."

She looked up at me, and there was something in her eyes I couldn't read. Something new. Or maybe something old that I'd just never noticed before.

"Drink your coffee," she said. "You look like shit."

"Thanks."

"Anytime."

I sat across from her and wrapped my hands around the mug. The warmth seeped into my fingers. Outside, the sun was struggling through the clouds, casting pale light across the kitchen floor. It was a Saturday. No classes. No obligations. Just the two of us and the quiet hum of the refrigerator.

"What are you doing today?" I asked.

"Nothing. You?"

"Nothing."

We sat in silence for a while, drinking our coffee, not looking at each other. Or looking at each other when we thought the other wasn't looking. It was a game we'd been playing for years, and neither of us had ever won.

"I was thinking," Cassie said, "we should do something. Together. Like we used to."

"Like what?"

"I don't know. Go to the lake. See a movie. Anything."

"Okay."

She smiled, and it was like the sun coming out. "Really?"

"Sure."

"Don't sound so excited."

"I'm excited."

"You're a terrible liar."

"I'm a great liar. You just know me too well."

She laughed, and the sound filled the kitchen, filled the house, filled the hollow place in my chest that had been empty for longer than I could remember. I thought about the night before, the way she'd asked me to promise, the way I'd said okay without meaning it. I thought about the way her fingers had felt on my shirt, the way her breath had warmed my shoulder. I thought about all the things I wanted to say and couldn't.

"The lake," I said. "Let's go to the lake."

---

The lake was a thirty-minute drive from our house, a small, murky body of water surrounded by trees and a few scattered picnic tables. We'd come here as kids, back when our parents were still together, back when summer meant swimming until our fingers pruned and eating sandwiches that tasted like sunscreen. The place hadn't changed much. The dock was still rotting. The water was still green. The memories were still there, waiting.

Cassie spread a blanket on the grass while I carried the cooler from the car. We hadn't brought much. Sandwiches, sodas, a bag of chips. It felt like playing house, like pretending we were normal siblings doing normal things on a normal Saturday. The pretending was exhausting.

"It's colder than I remember," she said, dipping a toe in the water.

"It's October."

"So?"

"So, it's cold."

She turned to look at me, and there was a challenge in her eyes. The same challenge I'd seen a thousand times before, the one that said I dare you, the one that had gotten us into trouble more times than I could count.

"Come in with me," she said.

"No."

"Chicken."

"It's not about being chicken. It's about not wanting hypothermia."

"Don't be dramatic."

She pulled off her shirt and tossed it onto the blanket. Her jeans followed. She stood there in her underwear, a plain black set that shouldn't have been anything special, and the sight of her hit me like a fist to the chest. Long legs. Pale skin. The curve of her hips. The small scar on her knee from when she'd fallen off her bike when we were twelve. I knew every inch of her, and I wanted to know it again.

"Coming?" she asked.

I shook my head. I couldn't speak. My throat was closed.

She shrugged and waded into the water, gasping at the cold. I watched her go, watched the water rise up her thighs, her waist, her chest. She dove under and came up laughing, her hair slicked back, her skin glistening.

"It's not that bad," she called. "Once you get used to it."

"I'll take your word for it."

She floated on her back, staring at the sky. The clouds had cleared, and the sun was bright and unforgiving. I sat on the blanket and tried not to look at her. I failed.

"You know," she said, her voice carrying across the water, "I used to think you were the only person who really knew me."

"I am."

"Are you?"

I didn't answer. I didn't know how.

She swam back to shore and sat beside me on the blanket, dripping and shivering. Her shoulder pressed against mine. Her skin was cold, but the contact burned.

"Here," I said, handing her a towel.

She took it but didn't wrap it around herself. She just held it in her lap, looking at me with those dark eyes that saw too much.

"I'm sorry," she said.

"For what?"

"For last night. For asking you to promise. That wasn't fair."

"It's fine."

"It's not. You don't have to promise me anything. You're allowed to leave. You're allowed to have a life."

"I know."

"Do you?"

I looked at her. Really looked. She was shivering, and her lips were slightly blue, and she was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen. I wanted to tell her. I wanted to tell her everything. But the words wouldn't come. They never did.

"I'm not going anywhere," I said.

She smiled, and it was sad, and it was real. "Okay," she said. "Okay."

We sat there for a long time, not talking, not touching, just breathing. The sun moved across the sky. The water lapped against the shore. Somewhere in the distance, a dog barked. Normal sounds. Normal day. Nothing unusual.

Except everything.

---

That night, I dreamed about her. Not the way I usually dreamed about her, not the vague, half-remembered images that left me ashamed and aching. This was different. This was vivid. This was real.

She was in my room, standing at the foot of my bed. The moonlight through the window made her skin glow. She was wearing the t-shirt from the night before, the one that barely covered her thighs. Her hair was loose, falling around her shoulders in dark waves.

"Marcus," she said.

I sat up. My heart was pounding. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong."

"Then why are you here?"

She didn't answer. She just climbed onto the bed and straddled my hips, and I could feel the heat of her through the thin fabric of my boxers. Her hands found my chest. Her fingers traced the lines of my collarbone.

"I've been thinking," she said.

"About what?"

"About you. About us. About all the things we don't say."

"Cassie..."

"Don't. Don't tell me it's wrong. Don't tell me we can't. I'm so tired of pretending."

She leaned down, and her lips were close to mine. So close I could feel her breath. So close I could taste it.

"Tell me you don't want this," she whispered. "Tell me, and I'll go."

I couldn't. The words wouldn't come. Because I did want it. I'd always wanted it. I'd wanted it since before I knew what wanting was.

She kissed me. Soft at first, tentative, like a question. Then harder, deeper. Her tongue found mine. Her hands moved to my hair, pulling, demanding. I kissed her back. I couldn't help it. I'd been waiting my whole life for this, and now it was here, and I was drowning.

She pulled back. Her eyes were dark, her lips swollen. She looked at me like I was the answer to a question she'd been asking for years.

"I love you," she said. "I've always loved you. Not like a brother. Not like family. I love you."

The words hit me like a wave. I opened my mouth to respond, to say something, anything, but the dream shifted. The room dissolved. Cassie faded. And I woke up alone, in my bed, hard and aching and more confused than ever.

---

I couldn't look at her the next morning. I sat at the kitchen table with my coffee and stared at the wall, and every time she came near, I flinched.

"What's wrong with you?" she asked.

"Nothing."

"You're being weird."

"I'm always weird."

"True." She poured herself a bowl of cereal and sat across from me. "Bad dream?"

"Something like that."

She didn't push. She just ate her cereal and scrolled through her phone, and I sat there and tried not to think about the way her lips had felt on mine, even if it was only a dream. Even if it didn't mean anything.

But it did mean something. That was the problem. It meant everything.

"I have to go," I said, standing up.

"Go where?"

"Out."

"Out where?"

"Just out."

She looked at me, and her eyes were sharp, knowing. "You're running."

"I'm not running."

"You are. You always run when things get complicated."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Yes, you do."

I left. I grabbed my keys and walked out the door, and I didn't look back. I drove around for an hour, aimless, my thoughts a storm I couldn't quiet. I ended up at a park, sitting on a bench, watching families play with their kids. Normal families. Normal lives. Normal people who didn't dream about their sisters.

My phone buzzed. A text from Cassie.

*Come home.*

I didn't respond.

Another text.

*Please.*

I stared at the screen for a long time. Then I typed back: *I need some time.*

Three dots appeared. Disappeared. Appeared again. Then: *Okay.*

I put the phone away and watched the sun set. The sky turned orange, then pink, then purple, then black. The families left. The park emptied. I stayed.

When I finally got home, it was past midnight. The house was dark. Cassie's door was closed, which was strange. She never closed her door. I stood in the hallway for a minute, listening. Nothing. Just silence.

I went to my room. I lay in bed. I didn't sleep.

---

The next few days were strange. We moved around each other like planets in separate orbits, close but never touching. She stopped coming to my room at night. I stopped leaving my door open. We ate meals together, but we didn't talk. Not really. Not about anything that mattered.

I thought about leaving. I looked up apartments online, jobs in other cities, anything that would put distance between us. I even called Derek and asked if his couch was still available. He said yes, and I said I'd think about it.

But I didn't leave. I couldn't. Every time I tried to imagine packing my bags, walking out the door, saying goodbye, something in my chest seized up. Something that felt like grief. Something that felt like fear.

On the fourth day, she cornered me in the kitchen. I was making a sandwich. She came up behind me and put her hand on my arm, and I froze.

"We need to talk," she said.

"There's nothing to talk about."

"There's everything to talk about."

"I don't want to."

"I don't care."

She turned me around to face her. Her eyes were red, like she'd been crying. I'd never seen Cassie cry. Not when our parents divorced. Not when our dog died. Not when she broke her arm in seventh grade. She didn't cry. She was the strong one. She was always the strong one.

"I know," she said.

"Know what?"

"About the dream. I know you dreamed about me."

My blood went cold. "How could you possibly know that?"

"Because I dreamed about you too."

The words hung in the air between us. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't think. I couldn't do anything except stand there and stare at her.

"What did you dream?" I asked.

She didn't answer. She just looked at me, and her eyes were full of something I couldn't name. Something that scared me. Something that thrilled me.

"It doesn't matter," she said finally. "What matters is what we do now."

"And what do we do now?"

She stepped closer. Her hand was still on my arm, and I could feel the warmth of her palm through my shirt. She smelled like lavender soap and something else, something that was just her.

"I don't know," she said. "But I'm tired of pretending. I'm tired of running. I'm tired of all of it."

"Cassie..."

"Tell me you don't feel it. Tell me you don't feel this. And I'll stop. I'll never mention it again. We'll go back to the way things were."

I should have said it. I should have told her I didn't feel it, that I didn't want her, that the whole thing was in her head. It would have been a lie, but it would have been a safe lie. A lie that kept us both from falling.

But I didn't say it. I couldn't.

"I feel it," I said.

Her breath caught. Her eyes widened. Then she smiled, and it was the saddest smile I'd ever seen.

"Okay," she said. "Okay."

And that was it. That was the moment everything changed. Not with a kiss, not with a touch, not with anything dramatic or cinematic. Just two words, spoken in a kitchen, with the refrigerator humming and the clock ticking and the whole world outside going on like nothing had happened.

But something had happened. Something irreversible.

We stood there for a long time, not moving, not speaking. Her hand was still on my arm. My heart was still pounding. The sandwich I'd been making sat forgotten on the counter, the bread going stale.

Then she let go. She stepped back. She looked at me like she was seeing me for the first time.

"I need to think," she said.

"Me too."

"Don't leave."

"I won't."

She nodded. Then she turned and walked out of the kitchen, and I listened to her footsteps recede down the hallway. Her door closed. Not all the way. It never did.

I stood there alone for a long time, staring at the sandwich, trying to remember what I'd been doing before she came in. Making lunch. That was it. I was making lunch.

Such a normal thing. Such a normal day.

Except nothing was normal anymore.

---

That night, I couldn't sleep. I lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, replaying the conversation in my head. I feel it. I feel it. I feel it. The words echoed, amplified, refused to fade.

Around two in the morning, I heard a sound. Soft. Careful. My door opening.

I didn't move. I didn't speak. I just waited.

Cassie slipped into the room and closed the door behind her. This time, she closed it all the way. The click of the latch was loud in the silence.

She crossed to my bed and stood there, looking down at me. The moonlight through the window caught her face, her hair, the thin strap of her tank top.

"Can I stay?" she asked.

My throat was dry. "Yeah."

She climbed into bed beside me. This time, there was no space between us. She pressed her body against mine, her back to my chest, and I wrapped my arm around her without thinking. It felt natural. It felt right. It felt like something I'd been waiting my whole life to do.

"I can't stop thinking about you," she whispered.

"I know."

"I tried. I tried so hard."

"I know."

"I don't know what to do."

I didn't either. But I held her tighter, and she sighed, and we lay there in the dark, two people who had crossed a line they couldn't uncross.

I didn't know what the morning would bring. I didn't know what we would become. I didn't know if this was the beginning of something beautiful or the end of everything we'd ever known.

But I knew one thing.

I wasn't going to let her go.

---

The morning came too soon. Light crept through the blinds, and I opened my eyes to find Cassie still in my arms. She was asleep, her breathing slow and steady, her body warm against mine. I stayed still, afraid to move, afraid to break the spell.

But spells break. They always do.

She stirred. Her eyes opened. She looked at me, and for a moment, there was confusion. Then memory. Then something else. Something that looked like fear.

"Marcus," she said.

"I'm here."

She sat up, pulling the sheet around her. She looked at the door, then at me, then at the door again.

"I shouldn't be here."

"You are here."

"I know. I know. But I shouldn't be."

She got out of bed. She stood there in the morning light, her hair a mess, her eyes wild, and she looked like a stranger. Someone I'd never met. Someone I wanted to know.

"Cassie."

"I have to go."

"Don't."

"I have to."

She walked to the door. She put her hand on the knob. She didn't turn it.

"I love you," she said, without looking back. "I love you, and I don't know what to do with that."

Then she opened the door and walked out.

I lay there for a long time, staring at the ceiling, feeling the empty space where she'd been. The sheets still smelled like her. Lavender and something else. Something that was just her.

I got up. I got dressed. I walked to the kitchen.

She was there, at the table, with her coffee. She didn't look at me. She just stared at her mug, and I stared at mine, and the silence between us was louder than any words.

"I'm sorry," she said finally.

"For what?"

"For last night. For everything. I shouldn't have come to your room."

"I'm glad you did."

She looked up. Her eyes were wet. "You are?"

"Yeah."

"Why?"

"Because I'm tired of pretending too."

She didn't say anything. She just looked at me, and I looked at her, and something passed between us. Something that didn't need words. Something that had been there all along.

"I don't know what happens next," she said.

"Neither do I."

"We can't... we can't be..."

"I know."

"But I can't stop. I can't stop feeling this."

"Me neither."

She reached across the table and took my hand. Her fingers were cold. Her grip was tight.

"What do we do?" she asked.

I didn't have an answer. I didn't have anything except the truth, and the truth was terrifying.

"I don't know," I said. "But I'm not going to pretend anymore. I'm not going to run. I'm here. I'm with you."

She smiled. It was small. It was fragile. It was everything.

"Okay," she said. "Okay."

And that was enough. For now.