Punishment with Kisses by Diane Anderson-Minshall Read Free Book Online Page A

crowd I’m talking about,” Ash snorted. “Besides, you could never keep up with us. You’re still wearing a training bra, aren’t you?”
    My face burned and my witty retort died in my throat. The taunt felt needlessly cruel.
    I couldn’t keep up with Ash. She was four years older, had a faster engine under the hood, and was probably jacked up with nitrous oxide or whatever the sideshow crowd was pimping their rides with. In comparison, I was an old clunker running on the power of two horses.
    If my darling sister hadn’t always tried to hold me back and keep me from having any friends or sharing any fucking experiences, leaving me trapped at home with two people who had come to hate each other, then maybe things could have been different. Maybe I wouldn’t always have come up short. Being held in comparison to Ash was kind of like using the same yardstick for Judy Blume and V. C. Andrews.
    I was trapped in this second-class life and secondhand body and Ash didn’t give a shit. She could have totally changed my life, just taking me with her one night and introducing me to the cool people. I’d seen plenty of uncool kids become totally hip just by extension of their cool siblings. I went to school with this one really unattractive chick who all the guys mooned over because somehow her class status made her pretty. Why couldn’t Ash lend me a little of her mojo? Why didn’t she want to spend time with me? How could she be simultaneously full of self-confidence and then act like she was embarrassed to even be seen with me? Could I drag her down by my very presence?
    Why did I bother coming home for the summer? I’d deluded myself into thinking we’d spend time together. Why did I imagine a miraculous change to our relationship? After ten years in the cold, what ever made me think Ash would invite me back in? Instead, we’d managed about fifty words since the beginning of the holidays, and that required battling Ash’s fan club just to get close enough to speak.
    “I’m not one of your minions, bitch.” I muttered the insult under my breath and stomped off before Ash could see my lower lip trembling and my eye twitching, sure signs I’d be sobbing in a moment. No doubt she and Cynthia would get a laugh out of that.
    Unable to reach my room before the dam burst, I stepped into one of our forgotten rooms and flopped down on the shrouded couch, full out sobbing. By the time my sobs had faded into sputtering hiccups, it finally dawned on me that Ash would always see me as a kid. It didn’t matter that I was an adult, that I’d graduated college, that I was past the drinking age and had voted in my first elections. It didn’t matter that I’d had lovers just like her, even though there hadn’t been nearly as many and even though the world didn’t fall at my feet, Ash would never see me as the grown woman I was.
    An hour later, when I was all cried out, I slipped out of the room and was on my way to my room when I ran into Tabitha. She seemed so miserable it pulled me from my own dumps, and I actually tried being nice to her by striking up a friendly conversation about the Junior League, a frivolous topic that usually piqued her interest. But not tonight. She cut me off, shut me down.
    My efforts to please others continued to go unnoticed. Why did I even bother? If I couldn’t even get a woman I disliked to notice me, had I hit bottom? When would I stop needing others’ approval? What would it take for me to feel like I’m enough just the way I am? Right as I was about to wallow in my own sense of failure, Tabitha offered me a tantalizing morsel.
    “Your father’s moving his stuff into one of the guest rooms.” She pointed vaguely toward the west wing of the house.
    I wondered what she had done to finally push Father to the point of leaving her. But why would he leave, instead of merely tossing her aside like he usually did with people who disappointed him?
    Tabitha was teary eyed but sounded more