Sister Swap

The door to my step-sister's room was open a crack, just enough for the smell to escape. Not perfume. Not that vanilla body spray she bathed in every morning before school. This was something else. Something earthy and sharp, like the air in a locker room after a wrestling tournament.

I should've kept walking. I had my own shit to deal with. A paper on the Peloponnesian War that was due in six hours, a half-eaten bagel in my hand, and zero interest in whatever drama Cassie was cooking up in there.

But the smell stopped me. That, and the fact that she was humming. Cassie never hummed.

I nudged the door with my elbow. It swung open.

She was sitting cross-legged on her bed, still in the jeans she'd worn to school. The jeans were dark gray, the kind that hid stains, which was probably the point. Her hair, the same dirty blonde as mine but longer, hung in a curtain over her face as she scrolled through her phone. She didn't look up.

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

I looked down. She was right. A white glob had landed on the beige fibers. I wiped it with my sock.

"What do you want, Owen?"

"Nothing. The door was open."

"It's always open."

That was true. Cassie's door was open the way a wound was open. You could see right in, but you didn't want to.

I turned to leave. Then she said my name. Not in the way she usually said it, which was with a kind of exhausted contempt, like I was a fly she couldn't be bothered to swat. This was different. Softer. Almost like she needed something.

I stopped. "What?"

She finally looked up. Her eyes were red-rimmed. Not crying red. Something else. Tired, maybe. Or wired. She'd been up late, and not for homework.

"I need a favor," she said.

"You need a lot of favors."

"This one's different."

She swung her legs off the bed and stood. Her jeans made a sound when she moved, a faint crackle, like the fabric had dried stiff. She walked to her desk, which was a disaster of loose papers, empty seltzer cans, and a single tube of mascara that had been squeezed until it split. She picked up a stack of papers and held them out to me.

"What's that?" I asked.

"My history essay. It's due tomorrow."

"Tomorrow's Friday. You have until Monday."

"Mr. Patterson doesn't accept late work. You know that."

I did know that. Patterson was a prick with a clipboard and a hard-on for deadlines. He'd failed a kid last semester for turning in a paper two hours late because of a dentist appointment. The kid's mom had screamed at the principal. Nothing changed.

"So turn it in," I said.

"I can't."

"Why not?"

She looked at the papers in her hand. Then at me. Then at the floor.

"Because I didn't write it," she said.

I laughed. Not because it was funny. Because it was so predictable. Cassie had been skating by on charm and plagiarism since middle school. She'd copy-paste from Wikipedia, change a few words, and call it a day. Teachers either didn't notice or didn't care. She was pretty. She was on the soccer team. She was the kind of girl who got the benefit of the doubt.

But Patterson wasn't the benefit-of-the-doubt type.

"So you want me to write it for you," I said.

"No."

"Then what?"

She held the papers out again. "I want you to trade."

I stared at her. "Trade what?"

She didn't answer. Instead, she unbuttoned her jeans.

I stepped back. "Whoa. What the hell are you doing?"

"Relax, perv. I'm not stripping for you."

She peeled the jeans down her legs. Underneath, she was wearing a pair of black boyshorts with a faded logo on the waistband. The jeans came off with a sound like velcro. She balled them up and tossed them at me. I caught them without thinking.

They were warm. Not just warm. Hot, like she'd been sitting in them for hours. And they were damp. Not soaked, but damp in a way that made my stomach turn and my brain short-circuit at the same time.

"What the fuck, Cassie?"

"Put them on."

"No."

"Put them on, Owen. Please."

She said please like it cost her something. Like the word was a tooth she'd pulled out with pliers.

I looked at the jeans in my hands. They were my size, more or less. Cassie and I were the same height, same build, same everything except for the parts that mattered. We'd swapped clothes before, accidentally, when the laundry got mixed up. But this was different. This was intentional. This was her asking me to wear her dirty pants.

"Why?" I asked.

"Because I need you to go to Patterson's office and drop off the essay. If he sees me, he'll ask questions. If he sees you, he won't care. You're a ghost. You're the guy who sits in the back and never says anything. He won't even remember your face."

"That's not an answer. Why do you need me to wear your pants?"

She crossed her arms. The boyshorts rode up on her thighs. She didn't seem to notice.

"Because," she said, "if I'm wearing them, I can't turn in the essay."

"That makes no sense."

"It makes perfect sense. You'll see."

I should've dropped the jeans and walked out. I should've told her to write her own damn paper and deal with the consequences. But I didn't. Because there was something in her voice. Something desperate and raw. And because I'd spent my whole life being the invisible one, the step-kid who came with the marriage, the extra mouth to feed. Cassie had never asked me for anything. Not once. She'd taken, sure. She'd borrowed my charger and never given it back. She'd eaten my leftovers from the fridge. She'd used my Netflix password for two years without asking. But she'd never asked.

This was new.

I looked at the jeans again. They smelled like her. Not the vanilla spray. Something underneath. Something animal.

"Fine," I said. "But you owe me."

"I know."

I kicked off my sneakers and unbuttoned my own jeans. Cassie watched me with an expression I couldn't read. Not smug. Not grateful. Something in between. Like she was waiting for me to figure out the punchline.

I pulled off my jeans and stood in my boxers. The room was cold. My legs prickled.

"Turn around," I said.

"Why? We're family."

"Step-family. And I don't care. Turn around."

She turned. I picked up her jeans and stepped into them.

They were tighter than mine. Not by much, but enough to notice. The denim was soft, worn thin at the knees. The waistband hugged my hips. The dampness had cooled, but it was still there, a faint clammy presence against my skin. And the smell. Up close, it was stronger. Not bad, exactly. Just intimate. Like I'd crawled inside her skin.

I zipped them up. They fit.

"You can look now," I said.

She turned back. Her eyes traveled down my body, slow and deliberate. When they reached the jeans, she smiled. Not a nice smile. A satisfied one.

"Good," she said. "Now go."

"The essay. You didn't give me the essay."

She picked up the stack of papers from the desk and handed it to me. I flipped through it. Ten pages. Typed. Double-spaced. It looked real. It looked like something I would write.

"Who wrote this?" I asked.

"Does it matter?"

"Yeah, actually. It does."

She shrugged. "A friend."

"What friend?"

"Just a friend. Now go. Patterson's office closes at four."

I looked at the clock on her nightstand. 3:42.

"Fine," I said. "But we're talking about this later."

"Sure."

She didn't mean it. I knew she didn't mean it. But I took the essay and walked out anyway, her jeans clinging to my legs, her smell rising up around me like a secret I hadn't agreed to keep.

The hallway was empty. The house was quiet. My mom was at work, and her husband, Cassie's dad, was probably at the gym. I walked past the kitchen, past the living room, past the front door. I could've stopped. I could've turned around and thrown the jeans in her face and told her to grow up.

But I didn't.

I got in my car and drove to school, the essay on the passenger seat, Cassie's jeans still warm against my skin, and a question burning in my chest: what the hell had I just agreed to?