"Okay is there a reason you're not talking to me?" Rachel asked, seeing her sister cleaning up the last of dinner. She hadn't said a word to her since she'd come home. It wasn't like Olivia, to shut her sister out, unless she was mad at her.
Ella seemed not to notice, as she was coloring in the living room, oblivious to the mounting tension in the kitchen.
"You can't figure it out on your own?" Olivia shot back, shaking her head. "I let you come into my home and you screw me over."
Rachel took a step back, "Liv, I don't know what you're talking about."
Was she really that dense? Olivia spun around on her heels, heat radiating off her petite frame as she stepped closer towards her younger sister. "You know what I'm talking about." She retorted, coming face-to-face with her. "You and him." Jealousy raged within her, her stomach knotted and tensed at the thought of Peter with Rachel. It was sickening and nauseating and she wanted to throw up the dinner she'd just eaten. She quickly swallowed the feeling, not wanting it to bother her but it was impossible. It hurt, she felt betrayed---again.
"Liv, I don't understand." Rachel gently rested her hand on her older sister's shoulder. "What are you talking about---Peter?" She tried searching her head for something she might have done offense.
"You're dating him!" Her voice came out louder than she anticipated. "It's not bad enough you had to go ahead and steal my boyfriend in high school but now this is." She was seething.
"Whoa, hold on a second. You and Peter---you're not dating and I'm not dating him either." Which was beside the point at the moment as Olivia had deduced they were and once she had something in her mind—factual or not, it wasn't leaving.
"He called you the other night on the house phone," it was clear as day to Olivia. Peter never called her 'just to talk.'
Rachel could feel the heat coming off her sister. "Calm down, let's talk about this rationally." She didn't want Ella knowing what was going on, so she led Olivia towards the bedroom, before shutting the door behind them. "I swear to you, I'm not sleeping with Peter."
"Oh great because that just makes a world of difference!" Olivia was frustrated beyond belief. She paced the length of her bedroom, shaking her head in dismay. "How long have you been seeing him behind my back?"
Rachel sighed, seeing as how she wasn't getting through to her sister. "I'm not seeing him. We're just friends. Can't guys and girls just be friends?" She asked staring at her sister. As it was, things between her and Greg were---troubled to say the least. It felt nice to have a male friend to talk to. "I mean aren't you and Peter just friends?"
Olivia shook her head, "I liked him, damnit and you had to go and ruin everything!"
Rachel sighed, sitting down at the edge of Olivia's bed. "I didn't do anything with him, Liv. You should know that. I mean, it's pretty obvious, he likes you too."
That caught her attention and for the first time since coming into the room, she stopped pacing. "What?" She was skeptical, to say the least, eyeing her sister wondering if this was her attempt to weasel her way out of what she'd done wrong.
"Come on, him calling the house. He's just trying to make you jealous and I'd say by the looks of it---it's working pretty well." Rachel admitted. "He never asked me out, Liv. We never went out. We had a few conversations at your house and then one over the phone about some stupid song." She stared at Olivia. "You should know I wouldn't do that to you."
Olivia stared at her sister, wondering if she was telling the truth. "You have in the past." She was in the eleventh grade and the boy she liked, the boy who obviously liked her but was too afraid to actually ask her out---Rachel swooped in and asked him out first. He was more than happy to date one of the Dunham sisters, apparently he hadn't cared which.
"I was stupid, Liv. I wanted to be just like you in high school," Rachel confessed, "and somehow in my idiotic mind I thought dating the guy you liked would make me just like you." She watched her sisters expression, seeing confusion cross her face and knowing she was deciding whether or not to forgive her. "I'm sorry, Liv. I am but I didn't do anything wrong this time. Peter likes you and it's pretty obvious you like him. Why don't you talk to him about it?"
That caught her attention, her head snapping up into place. "And say what exactly?" Was she crazy? They worked together! Maybe she did like Peter but saying it aloud was just----it was a stupid idea.
Rachel shrugged, "you could start with the truth."