Space by Emily Sue Harvey Read Free Book Online Page A

language,” I ordered. “Get back here and straighten it out.”
    Within moments, Jensen and Faith entered the front door. Faith was livid. She marched straight to Chloe and tossed the bracelet into her lap. “There. Satisfied?” Then she stalked from the room.
    â€œWait,” I called after her. “Come back here. You owe Chloe an apology.”
    She zoomed up to me. “For what?” She gazed at me as if I’d grown horns.
    â€œBecause you left wearing Chloe’s bracelet. Without permission.”
    â€œI asked her if I could try it on,” Faith said, tossing her cousin a look of disgust. “Did I not?”
    Chloe’s chin shot up. “But you didn’t give it back to me. You walked off with it on.”
    Jensen spoke up then, in his laid back way. “Chloe, just chill out. Okay? It’s Christmas.”
    â€œYou always take her side,” Chloe wailed, visibly shaken.
    Oh, Lord. A perfectly good occasion. Ruined.
    Again.
    I gathered my family and leftovers together minutes later and left.
    On the drive home, Faith snorted. “Little drama queen did it again. She is so disgusting.”
    Dan huffed disapproval and shook his head, yet refusing to be drawn in as he drove to our home. He maintained a distanced stance nowadays, leaving me feeling abandoned during Faith’s misconduct episodes.

    â€œStop it, Faith,” I said. “You weren’t totally innocent. You knew you had that bracelet on when you left with Jensen. It’s never right to simply take over someone else’s belongings. I think you enjoy prodding Chloe.”
    I looked at her over my shoulder. She was gazing out into the night, her lips curved into a sly smile.
    And I hoped — prayed — that the two of them would outgrow it all.

    Unfortunately, Faith’s and Chloe’s obsession with outdoing one another did not go away. For a while after Faith married and gave birth to Maddie, an uneasy truce did develop between the two of them. Chloe could not resist little Maddie, and to get to her, she had to go through Faith so she began, at that particular time, to pick her battles more carefully.
    The faux-peace prevailed until Faith’s decline into drugs. In the past, Faith had shown discretion in how far she would push Chloe and vice versa. I think that, to Faith, taunting Chloe had, somewhere along the way, become a sport.
    Chloe, still unmarried and attending a local college, had some of the same recklessness Faith possessed, and when the peaceful tide began to turn turbulent, Chloe’s anger regained momentum.
    After drugs clogged Faith’s already warped sense of right, all stops were pulled out.
    It drove the family crazy. Lexie and I tried to remain neutral, let the girls duke it out, but sometimes, maternal reactions would pop up.
    â€œChloe said Faith took one of her favorite sweaters the last time she stayed at Faith’s to baby sit Maddie,”
Lexie said one day, looking a bit tense when she dropped by the house for a cup of coffee together. “Chloe looked all over for it and Faith pretended she didn’t know where it was.”
    â€œI’ll talk to her,” I replied, uneasy with Lexie’s accusatory leaning in the use of “pretended.” Faith had already told me about Chloe’s “hissy fit” over a “tacky old sweater I wouldn’t be caught dead in.” Faith swore she’d not seen the item and had to practically push Chloe out the front door to get rid of her. “I don’t want her baby sitting for me anymore,” she decreed.
    Lexie and I agreed it was difficult to know who was telling the truth. Both girls were pretty even-Steven in meanness and retaliation and stretching the truth to fit their purposes.
    Today, as she prepared to leave, Lexie added, “Chloe said Faith shoved her out the door. She felt Faith was high on something.”
    â€œI’m sorry, sis,” I muttered,