anything goes anymore.” One side of her mouth twitched into a half smile. Her bare toes seemed to flex on the kitchen mat, the white polish on them chipped away to nothing. She still doesn’t care what she looks like, was what flashed into Knox’s mind. Doesn’t need to. This familiar thought evoked the old pride and anxiety all at once—her father’s proprietary clutches, the exaggerated compliments her mother used to shore Knox up, the need in Knox herself to look, to look, to look, to look, to peer endlessly at photographs, always know where Charlotte was in a room, memorize the way a thin chain fell around her neck, the shape of her head in profile, the way a day’s worth of sunburn reddened her eyebrows, the merits of certain colors—pink, black, a bright shade of turquoise—against her skin; like someone who stood too close to a canvas, she had trouble seeing what she was meant to in Charlotte’s particular, random alchemy of features, and so kept looking until she had to turn away confused, exhausted; all this mess rose in her now, and she felt sick of it already and glanced down at her shoes. This was part of what it meant to have a beautiful sister (and whether it had to do with proximity or jealousy or both or neither was impossible to say); one could understand it but not ever quite see it, however cross-eyed one went trying.
“Ugh,” she said, despite herself.
“What?”
“You know,” Knox said, taking a breath. She would be too old and wise now to wear herself out. “Just let me do this. Mom and Dad never get to see you. It’ll take me one second.” She pointed to a tin canister on the kitchen island. “Take those brownies in,” and she heard the note of command in her voice, adjusted to protect herself from any accusation of bossiness. “Just don’t eat them all before I get back in there, okay?” The water was still splashing uselessly into the sink; Knox moved past Charlotte to shut it off, but Charlotte leaned into her and wouldn’t let her pass. She rested her forearm on Knox’s shoulder, and Knox had to look into her eyes.
“I want to stay in here with you,” Charlotte said. She bowed her forehead until it touched Knox’s. The place where their skin met was almost hot, and Knox could smell her sister’s oily, bready breath and the apple-scented shampoo she’d borrowed from Knox’s bathroom for her shower. Charlotte jerked her head back up and smiled, but Knox had seen real fear and pleading pass over her face. In her surprise, Knox had a clear thought about herself, like a caption: Making her feel punished is never hard like I think, it never feels as good, I never remember this till it’s too late. She nodded and turned off the faucet; the subsequent quiet sounded like noise.
“I never get to see you, either,” Charlotte said, and bugged her eyes out, her mocking composure regained. She arched her back against the counter and folded her hands across her stomach, her fingers woven together. “Plus,” she said, her voice sounding happier, more charged than it had all through dinner, “if the brownies are in here, and we’re in here—”
Charlotte leaned back too far, and one of the heavy dishes slipped off the wet counter and crashed to the floor. She sprang up and away from the broken pieces at her feet, looked down at them, and put her hand to her mouth. She looked at Knox, whose own mouth was open, who could sense her parents and Robbie glancing up at one another in the next room.
“Oh Jesus,” Charlotte said.
“You’re kidding me,” Knox said. They watched each other. Knox felt poised to laugh; sheer not knowing what would happen next wheeled like a bird in her chest, knocking thrillingly against her throat, her ribs, trying to fly out.
“Was that my plate,” her mother called. “Charlotte? Tell me that wasn’t one of my plates.”
Knox and Charlotte kept their eyes on each other. They didn’t move. Knox could feel a tiny splinter of glass tacked to the skin of her arm. She could feel her heart beating and feel that Charlotte was tied to her in this moment; she wouldn’t do a thing until Knox did, would follow Knox’s lead.
Knox swallowed. “I dropped it,” she called back to her mother. “It just fell right out of my hands—sorry.” Her tongue felt coated; articulation always seemed more