Outside In by Chrissie Keighery Read Free Book Online Page B

she was at the bedroom door. She was wearing a yellow dress and a smirk. ‘Oh yeah, and she also wants you to clean up the bathroom. Dad’s razor and stuff.’
    Sam closed the lid of his laptop. He knew he should shut it down first. But this was an emergency.
    â€˜So you did it, finally?’ Lauren said. She sniffed at his bedroom, fingers pinching her nose. ‘It stinks in here.’
    â€˜Then feel free to f--- off,’ Sam countered. He folded his arms, ready for combat. But Lauren was the braver soldier. She walked right in.
    â€˜Give us a look,’ she demanded.
    Sam rolled his eyes. He stared at the roof as Lauren inspected his upper lip. There was a spider web in the corner.
    â€˜Not bad,’ Lauren said. ‘Just a little cut over there.’
    She sat on Sam’s unmade bed and arranged a big sisterly look on her face, probably borrowed from one of her stupid American sitcoms. She was all furrowed brows and quizzical mouth.
    â€˜So, how come you did it? You trying to impress someone?’
    Sam shrugged. He wondered if Lauren had caught a glimpse of the screen before he’d closed the lid. He decided that she couldn’t have. But then, where did the question come from?
    â€˜It’s OK,’ Lauren said, ‘happens to everyone, sooner or later.’
    She looked thoughtful, kind of dazed. She often wore this look when she talked about her boyfriend, Nelson. Sam liked Nelson. He was a good bloke. But he and Lauren were hopeless together. They were either attached to each other, some part of their bodies joined like Siamese twins, or they weren’t speaking to each other.
    Sam found it quite amusing, their dramas. Especially the not-speaking when they were on the phone. That was a classic. Lauren would lie on her bed in the next room. There would be a clump of words, followed by huffing, then silence. Why didn’t they just hang up? It was all pretty funny except when Lauren ended up crying. When that happened, Sam would put on his headphones and listen to his iPod.
    â€˜Sam?’ There was something different about Lauren’s tone. Normally, she hissed his name. Now her voice seemed soft around the edges. Her sitcom face wasn’t so sitcom anymore.
    He’d never really thought about what had caused all those silences. What made his sister cry. It was kind of crazy that he hadn’t because he seemed to be thinking about stuff all the time.
    â€˜If you’re gonna like someone…’ Lauren played with the hem of her dress. She twirled it around her fingers until it looked like the material was going to split. ‘Make sure it’s someone who likes you too.’
    Man. It was hard enough to try to decipher his own feelings. How could he know how Meredith felt? By looking at some lame website? Like, was the bum fluff comment supposed to relay some hidden meaning? That she liked him enough to notice? Or did it just mean that she had noticed?
    Lauren sighed as she got up. It seemed like she had given Sam a part of herself, and had become exhausted in the process.
    Sam thought he should feel like something had been unlocked. Like she’d given him a key to the truth about how relationships worked.
    Instead he felt like he was standing, toes over, at the edge of a cliff.

    Sam walked in a straight line and thought in a circle. Kind of like patting your head and rubbing your stomach. Rubbing your stomach and patting your head.
    There were options. He could stir Meredith, give her some of her own medicine. He could say, for instance, ‘Hey, Moo. Your boobs are certainly getting bigger. Maybe you should think about a bra?’ Or, ‘How are your periods coming along? Giving you any grief?’
    The thoughts tugged at the sides of his mouth, turning them up just a little. It wasn’t something he would ever actually do. Anyway, she probably already wore a bra. It wasn’t the kind of thing Sam normally noticed. And she was