Twelve

twelve

Kris

I had just gotten into pajamas when my phone rang. Whoever was calling me at almost ten o’clock at night better have had a good reason to. A death, a birth, or bail. Those were the only reasons you called past nine o’clock in my book.

Grumbling, I retreated from the bathroom and into the bedroom I shared with Zhen. He was stretched out on the bed, watching some TikTok from the sounds of it. He did have my phone in hand, and he extended it to me.

I took it, flipped it over to see the screen, and groaned. Charlotte. Always a roll of the dice when my sister called me. She’d called and apologized for blowing up at me after we’d gotten back from California, which I’d accepted because I recognized that half the words she’d spouted at me were actually our parents speaking through her. What had made me actually forgive Charlotte was her speaking directly to Zhen and apologizing. Which he’d accepted with good grace.

All that said…this call could’ve been a doozy or just her wanting to chat. Welp, let’s see why she was calling this time.

I swiped Accept even as I plopped down on the bed next to Zhen, resting my back up against the wooden headboard. “Hi, Charlotte.”

“ Hi, sis. Sorry, I know it’s probably late your time —”

With the time difference, later than she realized, since she was on the West Coast. I mentally shrugged and let that go.

“— it has just been one of those days, y’know ? Where I can’t seem to find enough breath to stop and talk. Finally found a moment to call you. ”

“Before this conversation continues, warn me. Good or bad?”

“ Oh, good ! No worries, this is a happy phone call .”

Uh-huh. Call me cynical, but I was still reserving judgement on that.

The sad truth of the matter was, Charlotte was still very much under our parents’ thumbs. I didn’t know why she was so desperate to be loved by them, but she’d twist and contort herself however necessary in order to please them. What she had yet to realize was they couldn’t really be pleased. Even if you did the thing they wanted, they weren’t happy because they weren’t happy people. Once you did that thing, they’d just set their sights on the next thing they wanted you to do. It was a never-ending cycle.

It was also why I’d left as soon as I could manage it. I hadn’t wanted to live in that cycle, where I wasn’t valued or loved. It had been toxic as hell. Now that I was with Zhen—and part of his family—I realized all over again how awful my parents were. I was loved without question by my new family.

Of course, trying to say any of this to Charlotte was like speaking to a dry-rotted garden hose. Not a word went in that didn’t immediately go out.

I kept trying because I wanted, as her big sister, to somehow pull her out of that toxic environment. I knew there might come a time when, for my own sanity, I’d have to cut her loose. But now wasn’t the moment. She wasn’t scraping the bottom of my barrel of patience yet.

“All right,” I encouraged, “so, what’s going on?”

“ Oh, I’m engaged !”

For a split second, I was almost happy for her, but then I remembered who our parents were and their favorite tactic. “I wasn’t aware you were dating someone…?”

“ Oh, it’s true I haven’t known him for long. Um, about two months ? But we get along rather well. ”

Now, I knew Americans rushed marriage, unlike most cultures in the world, but two months? Uh. “Now, wait a second, you didn’t mention anything when I saw you.”

“ Well, I didn’t get a chance before it all blew up. ”

“Yeah, okay, fair. All right, you’ve been dating two months, and you decided an engagement was a good idea?”

Zhen’s phone started making red alert sounds.

I glanced his way and found he was listening in, fully invested. I snorted at him, amused that he was playing sound effects for this conversation.

Hell, if he was listening in, I might as well put the call on speaker. “Charlotte, Zhen wants to talk with you, too, that fine?”

“ Oh, sure !”

“Cool.” I put the call on speaker and put the phone between us, propped up on a pillow. “Okay, so you’ve dated this guy for two months, and you’re already engaged. Knowing our parents, and hearing the speed at which you’re moving, I must ask: Is this an arranged marriage?”

Charlotte giggled like I was being silly. “ I’m not being forced into this. ”

A resigned sigh slipped out. “Charlotte. Any man our parents choose for you isn’t a good one. I’m sorry, I can’t be happy about this.”

Her humor abruptly vanished and she snapped back, “ You and Zhen got together faster than that !”

“There’s a very large difference there,” Zhen disagreed immediately. “You know full well what’s going on with us. We didn’t have a choice about moving in together.”

I’d finally explained about our bond situation during our makeup call, which had gone a long way in smoothing feathers. So, she had no excuse right now, as I had properly explained why our relationship had moved so fast.

“And while we do like each other a lot, and probably would have ended up like this eventually, the timeline wasn’t of our making,” I tacked on. “We should not be a guideline for relationships.”

She didn’t say anything, but I could hear the pouting.

“Charlotte, who is this man?”

The answer was quick and eager, like she could prove me wrong. “ James Rothschild. ”

Everything in me went still. “James…Rothschild? Did I hear that right?”

“ There’s nothing wrong with him, so I don’t know why you’re acting like this —”

“Charlotte, do not play me for an idiot. Everyone knows him. Youngest child of the Rothschilds, he’s a walking disaster. He’s such a momma’s boy that I’m surprised he pulled his mother’s tit out of his mouth long enough to pop the question.”

Zhen listed sideways, laughing, not even trying to hide it.

I kept going, anger and disgust rising in me in equal measure. “The man partied so hard in college, his degree was bought by his daddy’s money. Even now, he has a totally useless job in his father’s company that he never bothers to show up for. All he does is party, wreck cars, and get girls pregnant.”

“ He’s changed !”

“Charlotte, please, no one who’s said that has ever been proven right about someone else. Now, be honest with me. How many of your so-called dates with him were at either your house or his? Or some social function you needed an escort for?”

Dead silence again.

“All of them, huh? You know very well this isn’t the right man.”

Her voice was quieter now, very much on the defensive. “ He’s promised to be good to me in our marriage .”

“Of course he’s going to promise that when a set of parents is watching your every move. I’ll bet you anything that he’s been promised some outlandish sum of money if he marries you. He hasn’t changed his ways at all.”

Now she sounded on the verge of tears. “ I called you happy, with good news, and this is how you act ? Why can’t you just be happy for me ?”

“Because I’ve lived through this, Charlotte.”

Zhen’s eyes snapped up to mine, and he looked absolutely livid. “You did not.”

“I did. I told you about this, remember?”

“I thought you were just introduced, not engaged!”

“I didn’t let it get to the point of an engagement.” I rubbed my temples, not wishing to relive everything, but it came up unbidden, anyway. “My parents chose a man for me when I was barely legal to marry. A man much older than me but who was in all the right social circles. I was to be a trophy wife, drop my ‘useless interests’—my love for Chinese literature and language—and dutifully host parties and pop out babies. He did the same thing to me as Charlotte’s fiancé is doing to her. He was kind, and polite, and he said all the right things in order to get me to agree. But I saw through it all pretty quickly and left the house immediately so they couldn’t force me to the altar.”

“ Just because it wasn’t a good match for you, it doesn’t mean they haven’t found a good match for me —”

“Charlotte, our parents don’t even like each other. They’re not good matchmakers. They’ve never once successfully done this. You should not be taking their word for it.”

“ Nothing I say will convince you that this will be a good marriage, will it ?”

“No,” I agreed sadly. “No, because I see the situation for what it is.”

“ I called you because I want you to be there for my engagement party .”

“Charlotte, you know that I will support you in a lot of things, but inviting me to that is a mistake in multiple ways. For one, I think this is a mistake. For another, the idea of putting me in the same room as our parents for even a single evening is sure to end in disaster. We’ll argue immediately and ruin the mood of the party.”

“ If you’ll just apologize— ”

“In order to apologize, I’d have to confess to some wrongdoing. But I didn’t do anything wrong, now, did I?”

“ You know how our parents are. An apology will go a long way .”

“An apology does absolutely jack shit. It smooths things over in the moment only if you immediately do what they tell you to. It’s gaslighting, is all it is. And what am I supposed to apologize for, Charlotte? Choosing to marry someone they didn’t pick? That’s not a fucking crime.”

She blew out a resigned breath. “ I suppose you’re never going to get along with the rest of the family. ”

“No, I likely never will.”

Zhen leaned in a little to speak. “Charlotte, let me ask you this. You said your fiancé has turned over a new leaf and promised to be good to you.”

“ Yes, he did .” She sounded quite proud of this.

“Okay, so what happens if that proves not to be the case? What if he, say, is cheating on you?”

“ Well, I don’t think that’ll happen— ”

“What if scenario.”

She paused and ruminated on it. Then grudgingly said, “ I’d call it off. I don’t want a cheating spouse. But I’m sure it won’t happen. He really is sweet to me. ”

I locked eyes with Zhen, and we had a whole conversation with our eyes alone. My sister was living in delu-delu land. Man was likely cheating on her right now.

“ Anyway, I want you to really think about being there. Okay ? I want you to be there. I want my future kids to know their aunt and uncle. I’ll email you the invitation. Bye for now .”

I hung up, too, and then plonked sideways onto Zhen’s shoulder. I felt too tired from the argument to keep my head up.

“How can she so firmly have those rose-colored glasses on?”

Zhen snorted. “Truly. It’s like she’s tried to positively spin her parents’ actions her entire life. Maybe that was her coping mechanism to survive their house. Unlike you, who just combatted it.”

“Sounds about right. But if that man hasn’t taken her on even one proper date, you know this whole thing is for show.”

“Oh, for sure.”

The door nudged open, and Mùchén stuck his head inside.

“Hi, Mùchén, what’s up?” Please let it not be something else crazy. I did not need that right now.

“Can we go investigate?” Mùchén’s tail wagged.

I…uh…did not expect that question. I was bamfoozled by it. “You want to go investigate my sister’s fiancé?”

His tail wagged harder.

“You drama llama.” Honestly, I felt better for it, because at least then I’d know what was really going on—not the limited truths my sister had told me so it all seemed fine. She was still caught up in the idea of maintaining appearances. “Sure, go. If you can expose him for the loser he is, do it.”

Mùchén laughed, and let me tell you, there was a sound of doom in his laughter. Then, poof, he dove into a shadow and was gone.

“Darling wife?”

I stared at where Mùchén had disappeared to and second-guessed the wisdom of what I’d just done. “Yeah…I should have given him limits.”

“You really, really should have.”

“Too late now?”

Zhen laughed like he was on the sidelines, a show about to start.

I side-eyed him. “Do I need to get you popcorn?”

“And a beer,” he agreed cheerfully. “Because this is going to be funny.”

Well. I hoped it would be that and not just traumatic.