for advice. But childhood and sibling impressions are tough to break, and Cleo never quite trusted Georgie’s advice and also resented that she had to ask for help in the first place. That part wasn’t Georgie’s fault—she’d forward her articles on sleep training and why Cleo shouldn’t beat herself up when breastfeeding didn’t take—but it was hard to bridge the gap between them. Not just the age gap, not just the distance gap, but that elusive sense that though you were blood, sisters even, you really were more or less strangers. Through Cleo’s formative years, Georgie had been a disruption around the house, a stressor for her parents, a blight on their family dynamic. Those weren’t things that you glided over just because your parents were gone and you really only had each other. Maybe in the movies; maybe in fiction. But the truth was that genetics took you only so far, and Cleo didn’t know Georgie any better than she knew anyone else. It’s just how it was, with them virtually strangers when they shared the same house and then with Georgie having moved out by the time Cleo was eight. Also, as complicated as their relationship was from Cleo’s perspective—that she couldn’t help but see her sister as a permanent fuckup, even though Georgie was a heralded success in adulthood—Cleo also knew that Georgie held her own view: that she had been an only child for ten years before the baby came along and upended things. And as Cleo aspired to be the perfect child, Georgie was rebelling against it. Magnetic particles who repelled one another rather than grew closer.
Still, in adulthood, Georgie tried. She really did.
Georgie: R U in Seattle?? Saw the video. I shld come help.
After all the years of teenage and young adult turmoil, after dropping out of the UW and relocating to LA and enrolling in UCLA (and clearing her five-year probation from her weed arrest), Georgie had made a name for herself as a guru / life coach / therapist to the stars. She sold crystals and essential oils and, last Cleo had heard, was in talks to launch a tunic clothing line. (Georgie was always in tunics.) From time to time, she’d text Cleo with advice on how to de-stress with deep breathing or why she couldn’t and shouldn’t burn the figurative wick at both ends. Cleo always found it at least a little amusing that her sister was famous for doling out wisdom, but maybe Georgie had learned a thing or two on her rockier path to adulthood, and for that, Georgie had earned Cleo’s respect, even if the younger sister would never, ever believe in the healing power of crystals.
Cleo typed a reply.
Cleo: It’s ok. Leaving tomorrow. Gaby is on top of it.
Georgie wrote back immediately. She’d be awake this early on a Sunday because her twins, like Lucas, played club soccer—were being recruited for college scholarships—and Cleo was certain Georgie had them up juicing or stretching with her personal trainer or in their private home gym. (Cleo wasn’t being critical. No one got anywhere in this world without greasing their elbows and leaning in to the work.)
Georgie: Not ok. It’s a mess online. Have u not seen? Are u taking care of urself?
Actually, Cleo hadn’t seen. Because she really didn’t want to look. But she also really didn’t want to admit that to Georgie, who would take it for weakness, because, well, it was.
Cleo: Gotta run, Lucas wants to hit the gym. Will circle back. Promise.
Cleo watched as the ominous three dots appeared on her screen, then disappeared.
They both likely knew that Cleo would not circle back, nor did she really promise. Were unkept promises better or worse between sisters? Cleo didn’t know. She knew only that her family now was Lucas and, to a certain extent, Gaby. And it probably wasn’t what she always wanted for herself, but she was adult enough to know that almost no one got exactly what she wanted for herself. You got what you got, and you could work hard, really, really hard, and hopefully shift the tides or change your circumstances, but that usually didn’t reframe your foundation. If it did, you were one of the lucky ones—the exception, not the rule.
Plenty of people had it far worse than she did.
Unlike Georgie, Gaby was pleased with the overnight results from the YouTube upload.
“Look.” She thrust her phone in Cleo’s face while they were in the back seat of an Uber, on the