My Sister Rosa

by Justine Larbalestier

‘She wasn’t trying to kill Seimone, Che.’

  ‘This time.’

  ‘I don’t think Seimone’s in danger from Rosa. Not physically.’

  ‘I wish I believed that.’

  ‘You heard her. Seimone’s her best friend. Having a best friend is useful to Rosa. She’s talked to you about how she finds us useful?’

  I nod.

  ‘We’re both watching her. We know how she is. It’s going to be okay, Che.’

  David hugs me and I let the relief wash over me. Having him on my side is huge, even though all I want is to lie down, close my eyes, and stop thinking about what happened, stop picturing Seimone’s face turning blue.

  I walk them to the door. Rosa has her backpack on. She’s smiling like a little girl who’s having a sleepover with her best friend. She races ahead to the lift to press the button. I lean against the door. ‘See you later,’ I say, as if we were a normal family.

  David turns to me. ‘It’ll be okay. We’re both making sure she keeps her promises.’

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  I check my phone. Texts from Leilani, Georgie and Sojourner. Sojourner.

  The phone switches off before I can read it. No juice. I plug it into the charger on the kitchen island, bouncing back and forth, waiting for my stupid phone to come to life.

  I want to see Sojourner. This time yesterday we were in the park kissing.

  The blender is still in the sink. I can’t stand seeing it. I turn my back, look at the phone. It’s still dead.

  Seimone could have died right here.

  I don’t believe it was Seimone’s idea. Christ. Rosa has wormed her way deep for Seimone to risk dying to please her.

  I pull the blender out of the sink, tip the contents into the bin, stick it in the dishwasher. I wash my hands even though none of that peanut mess has gotten on me. Then I check the phone again.

  It’s alive.

  Sojourner’s text is —Whatcha doin?

  —Thinking bout you.

  —Wanna go for a run?

  —Wanna come over to my place? Everyone’s out.

  —My moms are out too.

  —You at your place now?

  —Yeah.

  —Walk along ninth. I’ll meet you.

  —I’m walking.

  —Me also. Walking towards you.

  I lock the apartment door and bypass the lift for the stairs.

  —So romantic, Che. I’ll swoon.

  —Because I’m hot.

  —Gag.

  I don’t walk. I run along Ninth dodging foot traffic, darting across the avenues against the lights, not pausing until I see Sojourner crossing through the park. I stop, feeling like an idiot for having run because I want to see her so bad. At the streetlight she smiles, raises her hand.

  I speed up. She does too. Then we’re standing in front of each other grinning like idiots.

  We kiss. I’m not thinking about anything but the feel of her mouth against mine. She pulls away. ‘My place? Moms won’t be home till after eleven. You wouldn’t have to leave for ages.’ ‘Mine won’t be back till tomorrow.’

  ‘Oh,’ Sojourner says, taking my hand. We walk Manhattan west to my place. Our hands fit together like our fingers are meant to be entwined. Sojourner walks faster, I keep pace. She pulls her hand away and half runs.

  Then she is running, laughing. My heart expands. I chase her, dodging a woman walking two chihuahuas, jumping the leash. I narrowly miss bumping into a couple holding hands and swinging them as if they’re littlies. Sojourner’s ahead of me, still laughing. If there weren’t so many people out, walking slowly, taking up most of the footpath, I’d catch her.

  She stops outside my apartment building. ‘What kept you?’ ‘Annoying people,’ I say, pulling her to me and kissing her again. I taste salt. I taste her.

  I pull away to unlock the door to the lobby and nod hello to the doorman, but I’m not looking at him, I’m looking at Sojourner. We’re holding hands again. I pull her into the lift and punch the button for our floor. We’re kissing again, holding each other, bodies pressed tight together.

  The lift doors open. We race each other to the apartment. I let go of her hand to pull out the keys, fumbling them out of my pocket into the keyhole, looking at Sojourner. I drop them. She kisses me. We press up against the door. Her hands are on my shoulders, down my back, under my shirt, my hands against her waist, pulling her tight against me. I can feel her breasts against my chest.

  ‘Inside,’ she says between kisses.

  ‘Right,’ I say, making myself let go of her.

  My heart’s beating in my ears, in my fingertips. My breathing’s too shallow, too fast.

  ‘Keys.’

  I bend for them. Make myself look at them, pick out the right one, insert it into the lock, unlock the door. We stumble in, shut the door behind us. I lock it. Slide the keys into my pocket.

  Sojourner bursts out laughing again.

  She’s so beautiful. I don’t know what to say. I touch her cheekbone. She takes my hand in hers, kisses my fingertips.

  I groan.

  The smile on her face is everything.

  ‘Upstairs.’

  She nods. We take the stairs two at a time, bumping into each other, tumbling through the door to my room. I shut it, don’t turn the light on. The blinds are open, and light floods in from the street.

  We stand there, looking at each other, looking at my bed. My double bed. I’ve had double beds since I was twelve but there’s never been anyone in any of them but me.

  I want to touch her again but I don’t.

  What should I say? Are we going to have sex? We need to discuss it first. I don’t want to push it. Christ, I realise. I don’t have any condoms. So that’s that then. Weirdly, the realisation that we aren’t going to have sex makes me feel more relaxed.

  ‘Nice room.’ She’s looking at the Ali poster, at his knuckles.

  Her left hand forms a fist. She holds hers up to his.

  I look at her fist, then at Ali’s. ‘You need more scars.’

  ‘Give me time.’ She does an Ali shuffle.

  I whistle. ‘Almost as fast as the great man.’

  ‘Almost?’ She swats at me.

  ‘Almost.’ I bend to kiss each knuckle of her fist, peering up at her. ‘You taste good.’

  ‘Like sweat.’

  ‘Like your sweat.’

  ‘You taste good too.’ She steps closer, takes my bottom lip into her mouth.

  I groan again. I can’t help it.

  ‘I can stay. I’ll text my moms that I’ll stay the night.’

  I swallow. ‘I want you to stay the night.’ I want you, I don’t say. ‘But…’

  ‘But?’

  ‘I, um, I don’t have any, um, protection.’ Jesus Christ, how old am I? I can say condom out loud.

  ‘Sure you do,’ Sojourner says, waving her hand at my wraps, neatly rolled up and in a pile on the chair next to my desk.

  ‘Funny.’

  ‘It’s alright. I have condoms.’

  ‘Oh.’ She has condoms. We can have sex if we want to. My heart speeds up. Tachycardia. The thought of having sex is going to give me a heart attack.

  She smiles, kisses me lightly on the cheek, puts her hands flat against my chest to push me towards the bed, till I’m sitting on it, lying back on it, and Sojourner’s on top of me.

  She’s all I can smell, she’s all I can see. I’m harder than I’ve ever been. My heart is beating faster than it has ever beaten.

  ‘We don’t,’ she says, kissing my nose, ‘have to,’ kissing my chin, ‘do anything,’ kissing my mouth, ‘we don’t want.’

  ‘I want to,’ I breathe. ‘You’re beautiful. You’re so, God, Sojourner. I could worship you. I could—’

  ‘Be the most blasphemous person alive,’ she says, but she isn’t mad.

  She’s kissing me; I’m kissing her.

  We’re pulling each other’s clothes off. Her breasts, I’m touching Sojourner’s breasts. She
’s touching my stomach, a finger along the line of my obliques, her hand brushes past my dick.

  ‘Oh.’

  We’re falling over each other, moving too fast, not fast enough.

  Then we’re on our knees, facing each other. She’s all sinew and muscle. Her shoulders look carved. I can see the line of each muscle of her rotator cuff.

  I run my fingers along her bottom lip, her chin, her neck, over her breasts, along her abs, tentatively I touch between her legs.

  I look up. Sojourner nods, then guides my fingers to where she wants them, whispers to me what to do. Her words against my ear make me dizzy, make heat spread over me as if my blood’s burning.

  We move in time with her hips, with the movement of my hand against her. My dick throbs. My head and my heart too.

  We press closer together, breathing faster, kissing. I speed up in time with Sojourner, faster and faster, pressing harder when she tells me to, then faster, harder, faster, faster, then—

  She presses her thighs tight against my hand, lets out a low moan.

  ‘Stop,’ she whispers. ‘Stop.’

  We fall onto the bed, dripping sweat. My hand’s a little numb. I shake it.

  Sojourner grins at me. ‘Mmmm.’

  We lie there, her hand on my belly, her head on my shoulder. I listen to her breathe. Outside sirens blare and I realise there haven’t been any since I went to meet Sojourner. Or, rather, I haven’t heard them.

  She leans up on her elbows to kiss me. ‘Salty,’ she says, rolling off the bed.

  For a moment I’m scared she’s leaving. Instead she digs in her trackpants pocket and hands a small foil packet to me.

  ‘Your turn.’

  ‘We don’t have to,’ I begin, nervous I won’t put it on right, that I won’t last long enough.

  I stare at the foil in my hand. I’ve watched vids on how to do this. You’re supposed to check the expiry date. I do. It expires when I turn twenty.

  ‘I just bought them,’ Sojourner says.

  ‘Right.’ I feel like an idiot.

  I pinch with one hand, roll it over my dick with the other, slowly, determined not to mess it up. I read somewhere that a condom could tear if you go too fast or roll it the wrong way.

  Sojourner giggles.

  I look at her.

  ‘You’re concentrating all intent like this.’ She narrows her eyes, wrinkles her nose and forehead. ‘Like in class when Dido corrects you and you’re all, I will follow her moves exactly. You get the same expression – like there’s nothing else in the world.’

  She leans in to kiss me. ‘It’s adorable.’

  ‘Adorable?’

  ‘Hot. It’s really hot.’ She moves in closer. ‘Really, really hot.’

  ‘Is this a thing?’ I ask.

  It isn’t dawn yet. Sojourner lies on her side, her back to me. My arms are around her.

  ‘It’s a thing.’

  ‘What kind of a thing? A you’re-my-girlfriend-now kind of a thing?’

  ‘A pretty big thing.’ She laughs.

  ‘What changed your mind? I mean, I’m still not a Christian.’

  ‘I can’t lie. I wish you were. But…’

  ‘But?’

  ‘I like you. I like this. It doesn’t matter how long it lasts.’

  It matters to me. I want this to last forever.

  ‘I’m not being cool about this, am I? I want to be your boyfriend. I really like you, Sojourner. I’ve never felt like this before.’ I can’t bring myself to say love, not yet, but that’s what I’m feeling.

  ‘You’ve never had sex before.’

  ‘Shhhh. You know it’s not that. Though that was great. Don’t get me wrong.’ I press closer to her, feel myself go hard against her arse.

  ‘Mmmm.’

  ‘Since it was my first time, I need more practice. With you.’

  ‘With me.’

  ‘Because I’m your boyfriend?’

  ‘Because you’re my boyfriend.’

  I kiss her. Sojourner kisses me. We put in more practice.

  I wake with sunlight in my eyes. I didn’t pull down the blinds. Sojourner is lying next to me. I haven’t thought about Rosa in hours.

  I’m going to make Sojourner a fry-up of eggs and bacon and tomatoes and onions, not letting her help. She leans across the island to kiss me as I chop the tomatoes.

  ‘Good morning,’ David says, emerging from the study.

  We spring apart and I knock some tomato to the floor. ‘Fuck.’

  ‘Swearing,’ Sojourner says.

  ‘Good morning, Sid,’ David says as if it’s perfectly normal for her to be eating breakfast here, which makes it perfectly abnormal.

  I scrape up the tomato from the floor and dump it in the bin.

  ‘Want some coffee?’

  We both nod. I start the onions frying. Then the bacon.

  ‘Where are Sally and Rosa?’

  ‘They’re with Lisi and Gene. They’re taking the two girls to a counsellor.’

  I wonder whose doing that was. ‘Good,’ I say.

  ‘Yes. They need to understand the seriousness of what they did.’

  Sojourner looks at me but doesn’t ask what he’s talking about. I wonder why David wasn’t going to the counselling session as well. To stay here so we can talk more? I want to know why he kept his knowledge about Rosa a secret for so long.

  I crack the eggs into a second pan. One of the yolks breaks. ‘Scrambled okay?’

  ‘Sure.’

  I flip the bacon again, push the eggs and the tomato and onion mixture around their separate pans. I’m starving. I turn the flames down a fraction. I don’t want to burn the bacon. David hands us coffee. Sojourner takes hers with a lot of milk and sugar. David doesn’t approve but he keeps it to himself.

  I serve, handing Sojourner her plate heaped high. I know her appetite’s like mine. ‘Forks!’ I grab two and hand one to her.

  We hoe in.

  ‘This is great,’ Sojourner says, between mouthfuls.

  I wish David would disappear into the study.

  ‘Do all boxers eat as fast as you two?’ he asks.

  ‘I teach this morning,’ Sojourner says, ‘so I gotta go soon.’

  ‘Normally she eats as slowly as Rosa.’

  I wish I hadn’t mentioned Rosa.

  ‘What do you teach?’ David asks.

  ‘This morning? Self-defence, then kickboxing.’

  She finishes, grabs our plates and rinses them. I jump up to take them from her and put them in the dishwasher. ‘I’ll walk with you.’

  Sojourner smiles. ‘Thanks for the coffee, David.’

  ‘What did your sister do?’

  ‘She…’ I’m not sure how to explain Rosa almost killing her supposed best friend. Do I tell the story that Rosa and Seimone are swearing is true? Or do I tell her what I’m pretty sure happened? ‘She made trouble and dragged her friend Seimone into it.’

  Sojourner laughs. ‘So detailed.’

  ‘Explaining Rosa is complicated. She’s not like other kids.’

  ‘She’s cute. A bit vain and attention-seeking, but she’s only a kid.’

  I weigh up telling Sojourner the truth. I’ve told Leilani. Sojourner’s my girlfriend now. We’re walking down Lafayette hand in hand. We’ve had sex. We’ve talked about religion and what we want to do with our lives. I’ve met her moms. She’s met my family. I should tell her.

  Not now. I want to hold on to this feeling, not talk about Rosa.

  ‘Tell me more about what you believe. You say you’re Christian but you’re okay with sex before marriage, with homosexuality, with—’

  ‘I believe that Jesus was the Son of God and He came to help us. To help everyone, but especially the most disenfranchised, the poorest, the most discriminated against. My Jesus was about feeding the hungry, throwing the money-lenders out of the temple. My Jesus believed passionately in social justice, economic justice, every kind of justice. He wanted to make the world a better place.’

/>   ‘Do you believe in evil?’

  Sojourner nods.

  ‘Do you believe that some people are evil? That they’re beyond saving?’

  ‘No one’s beyond saving but some people are…They get pretty close.’

  ‘I don’t believe in evil. Not like that. I think evil people can be explained by the morphology of their brains, their genes, their environment. Really, by the interaction of those three things.’

  Sojourner is staring at me. ‘That’s very, um, detailed. You’ve thought about this a lot?’

  ‘Yup. What about hell? Do you believe in hell?’

  ‘I believe many people are living in hell right now. There are many awful things in the world. Including right here in America. Cops killing my people and not even getting a slap on the wrist. So many people inflicting pain on others. How could hell be any worse?’

  When I tell Sojourner the truth, will she think I’m living in hell with my devil sister tormenting me? Am I?

  ‘I guess,’ Sojourner says, ‘the idea of a hell and a heaven in the afterlife is a way to comfort us that those who do wrong in this life will be punished and those who do good are rewarded. But I doubt they really exist.’

  ‘So you don’t believe that the Bible is the literal word of God?’

  ‘I think it’s a record of His words imperfectly recorded by humans. In the case of the New Testament, some of them generations after the death of Jesus. I believe there’s truth in the Bible. Some of it metaphorical, some of it literal.’

  Sojourner’s version of Christianity isn’t like any version I’ve come across. I realise I’ve only talked with conservative Christians.

  ‘Have you heard of Liberation Theology?’

  I have, but I don’t know anything about it.

  ‘Look it up. That’s what I believe. What do you believe? Is your God science?’

  ‘No gods for me. I believe in a lot of what you’re saying. Social and economic justice, helping other people whenever we can. Mostly I believe in empathy. Without empathy this world is doomed.’

  Sojourner nods. ‘How about love? Do you believe in love?’ I squeeze her hand. ‘Love and empathy? I believe in them absolutely.’

  I turn to kiss her and whisper in her ear, ‘Also sex. Big belief in sex right now.’