Me-Before-You-by-Jojo-Moyes

I looked at my sister hard. ‘You mustn’t tell anyone what I’m about to tell
you. Not Dad. Especially not Mum.’
Then I told her.
I had to tell someone
There were many ways in which I disliked my sister. A few years ago I could
have shown you whole scribbled lists I had written on that very topic. I hated her
for the fact that she got thick, straight hair, while mine breaks off if it grows
beyond my shoulders. I hated her for the fact that you can never tell her anything
that she doesn’t already know. I hated the fact that for my whole school career
teachers insisted on telling me in hushed tones how bright she was, as if her
brilliance wouldn’t mean that by default I lived in a permanent shadow. I hated
her for the fact that at the age of twenty-six I lived in a box room in a semidetached
house just so she could have her illegitimate son in with her in the
bigger bedroom. But every now and then I was very glad indeed that she was my
sister.
Because Katrina didn’t shriek in horror. She didn’t look shocked, or insist that
I tell Mum and Dad. She didn’t once tell me I’d done the wrong thing by
walking away.
She took a huge swig of her drink. ‘Jeez.’
‘Exactly.’
‘It’s legal as well. It’s not as if they can stop him.’
‘I know.’
‘Fuck. I can’t even get my head around it.’
We had downed two glasses just in the telling of it, and I could feel the heat
rising in my cheeks. ‘I hate the thought of leaving him. But I can’t be part of
this, Treen. I can’t.’
‘Mmm.’ She was thinking. My sister actually has a ‘thinking face’. It makes
people wait before speaking to her. Dad says my thinking face makes it look like
I want to go to the loo.
‘I don’t know what to do,’ I said.
She looked up at me, her face suddenly brightening. ‘It’s simple.’
‘Simple.’