“Respect,” I said. “That’s what this is about. I asked you to stop doing something in my home, and you decided my request didn’t matter because you didn’t personally agree with it.”
Kayla laughed.
That short, dismissive little laugh had been grinding on my nerves for days.
“You’re overreacting. It’s literally just a towel.”
Before I could answer, footsteps sounded on the stairs.
Andrew appeared in the kitchen doorway.
He stopped when he saw us.
For several seconds, nobody spoke.
Then Kayla turned toward him.
And suddenly I recognized what bothered me most.
She wasn’t embarrassed that we’d been arguing about this again.
She looked almost pleased to have an audience.
“Andrew,” she said, “tell me honestly. Does this make you uncomfortable?”
Andrew didn’t answer immediately.
He looked at Kayla.
Then me.
Then back at Kayla.
“I’ve already told you,” he said calmly. “This isn’t about me.”
Kayla rolled her eyes.
“Of course it’s about you. You’re supposedly the one being affected.”
“No.”
Andrew stepped farther into the kitchen.
“That’s where you’re wrong.”
Something in his tone made Kayla stop smiling.
Andrew picked up his coffee.
“I started leaving the room because I didn’t want to participate in whatever you were doing.”
“I wasn’t doing anything.”
“You called it a test.”
Kayla shrugged.
“It was a joke.”
“It stopped being funny when Amanda asked you to stop.”
Silence.
Andrew continued.
“You wanted to see whether I’d react. Whether I’d look. Whether I’d flirt. Whether I’d do something you could point to afterward.”
Kayla’s face tightened.
“I was proving a point.”
“To whom?”
She didn’t answer.
Andrew nodded.
“Exactly.”
Then he pulled out his phone.
I frowned.
“Andrew?”
He glanced at me.
“It’s okay.”
Then he looked at Kayla.
“You said this was a test.”
Kayla crossed her arms.
“So?”
“So congratulations.”
Andrew unlocked his phone.
“You passed.”
Her expression changed.
“What?”
He tapped the screen several times and turned it toward her.
There were three rental listings.
Rooms.
All within twenty minutes of our house.
For several seconds, Kayla simply stared at them.
Then she looked at Andrew.
“What is this?”
“Your results.”
“Results of what?”
“The actual test.”
His voice remained calm.
“Whether you’re ready to live with roommates.”
Kayla’s face went blank.
I almost spoke, but Andrew continued before I could.
“You’ve been staying here because you’re going through a difficult time. We understood that. Nobody expected you to be perfect.”
He pointed toward the phone.
“But living with other people means respecting boundaries you don’t necessarily understand.”
Kayla looked at me.
Then back at him.
“You’re throwing me out because I wore a towel?”
“No.”
I finally stepped in.
“We’re talking about what happens next because I asked you to stop, and you deliberately kept doing it.”
Her face reddened.
“This is ridiculous.”
“No,” I said. “What’s ridiculous is that you keep reducing this to a towel because that’s easier than admitting what actually happened.”
“What happened?”
“I said no.”
She stared at me.
“And you decided my no only counted if you agreed with my reason.”
That silenced her.
Andrew put his phone on the counter.
“This isn’t about whether Amanda is jealous.”
“I’m not—”
“I know.”
He didn’t raise his voice.
“That isn’t the point.”
Then he looked at Kayla.
“You were given a boundary in somebody else’s home. Instead of respecting it, you turned it into an experiment.”
Kayla looked toward the rental listings again.
“So you two planned this?”
“No,” I said immediately.
I turned toward Andrew.
“I didn’t even know he’d been looking at rooms.”
Andrew nodded.
“She didn’t.”
That surprised me almost as much as it surprised Kayla.
“When did you do this?” I asked.
“Last night.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I was wrong too.”
That wasn’t the answer I’d expected.
Andrew leaned against the counter.
“When you first told me what was happening, I said I’d stay out of it because Kayla was your sister.”
I remembered.
At the time, I’d been annoyed.
But I’d also understood why he didn’t want to get dragged into an argument between sisters.
Andrew shook his head.
“That sounded reasonable when I said it.”
Then he looked at me.
“It wasn’t.”
I stayed quiet.
“This was happening in our home,” he continued. “And it involved both of us. By saying, ‘She’s your sister,’ I basically left you alone to enforce a boundary that affected both of us.”
Some of my anger disappeared.
Not all of it.
But some.
“So yes,” Andrew said. “I started paying attention.”
Kayla gave a bitter laugh.
“Apparently you’ve been documenting me.”
“Not recording you.”
He held up his phone.
“I wrote down what happened because every time Amanda confronted you, the story changed.”
Kayla frowned.
“What story?”
“First, you didn’t think anything was wrong.”
He counted on his fingers.
“Then Amanda was insecure.”
“Then it was supposedly funny.”
“Then you said you were testing me.”
“And now it’s ‘just a towel.’”
Kayla looked away.
“I wanted clarity,” Andrew said. “That’s all.”
“And what did your little investigation tell you?”
“That you weren’t actually testing me.”
Kayla looked back.
“You were testing whether your boundaries mattered more than ours.”
The kitchen became completely silent.
For the first time all week, Kayla had no quick answer.
Her grip tightened around her mug.
Finally, she said:
“You have no idea what I’ve been through.”
Her voice sounded different now.
Smaller.
“I know Eric left you,” I said.
“After six years.”
“I know.”
“I gave him six years, Amanda.”
Her eyes suddenly filled.
“And one day he just decided he didn’t want our life anymore.”
I softened slightly.
But I didn’t back down.
“I know you’re hurting.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Maybe I don’t.”
I paused.
“But being hurt doesn’t mean you get to hur