"There's no way that one of your requests would be for me to put you out of your misery, is there?"
"Nope," she answered sweetly, not sounding sick at all.
"Damn. Didn't think so, but you never know if you don't ask." I replied snidely, crossing my arms.
A while later our parents came back downstairs. They lavished Aphrodite with kisses and hugs which she 'weakly' tried to dissuade because they'd 'catch' what she had. Then they stiffly said goodbye to me and walked out the door. I stared after them for a moment. Suddenly I heard movement behind me.
"Are they gone?" Aphrodite was sitting up on the couch looking fresh as a friggen daisy, craning her neck to see past me. Lestat jumped up on the couch, further hindering her view.
"Yes, O weak dying one. Your protectors, sworn to keep you safe in your frail health have left you with the evil witch."
"Oh, shut up. You at least should have been able to tell that I was faking." She impatiently pushed Lestat off the couch and started fluffing her hair up. She then pulled a compact out of the front of her too tight short shorts and began applying makeup.
"Obviously. I think the only one's who were fooled were our parents. And they call themselves professors," I said scathingly.
My sister's eyes flicked up to look at me for a second, an amused look tugging at her mouth, before she returned to her life, aka, her mirror. Suddenly, she said, "Hey, I need you to get my costume."
"What costume?" I asked, confused. She wasn't one to wait until Halloween to get one. She always had to have all her holiday things WEEKS before the date of whatever it happened to be.
"A costume that I ordered a little while ago from The Little Devil costume store downtown," she replied calmly, looking for any 'missed' spots on her face, and apparently finding some.
"I'm not going there!" The Little Devil was a new costume shop that sold really sleazy costumes that they proclaimed were 'sexy.' I avoided the place like the plague. It was SO not a place I was comfortable around, and there was no way she was going to get me in that store.
She froze in mid application and turned a frosty eye on me, then turned it into an acid smile. "'Oh, mommy, daddy, Bast didn't get me my robe. I was getting a bit cold, but not enough for more blankets.'" She added a bit of weak coughing here for effect. "'I begged her for it, but she said her video games were too important and went upstairs…'" Her eyes started to water with fake tears. I glared at her, and she laughed, tears gone. "Now," she started as she went back to applying make-up, "costume."
"…no."
"No?" She slowly turned her head back to stare at me with a look of very well faked surprise. "Why ever not? I ordered one for you too, you know. I thought we could have a little costume party like we used to when we were kids…only this one would include Chester…but that doesn't matter, does it? It'll be a ton of fun." This time her face looked completely genuine. I was amazed.
"What kind of costume is it? That you got me, that is?"
Aphrodite smiled. "Oh, that's a surprise. You won't know until you get it."
I raised an eyebrow at her. Did she honestly think I didn't know what kind of costumes waited in that shop?
She caught my expression and sighed. "Look Bast, contrary to what is said about The Little Devil, they have more than the perverse costumes everyone assumes is the only thing in the store. I swear the costume I ordered for you will suit you perfectly." She smiled warmly again, almost too sweetly, but I didn't want to see under the gilded image. I just wanted to have fun with my sister again, so I ignored all the little warning bells ringing in my head.
"O…ok. I'll go get them." She smiled again and, with a high pitched laugh, threw her arms around me.
"THANKS! I knew I could count on you!" She gave me a quick kiss on the forehead and beamed down at me. "I've got to getready; Chester will be here any minute!"
This Chester that keeps coming up must be her new boyfriend. I wasn't looking foreword to meeting him. None of her boyfriends were ever kind in the least, just as cruel and hurtful as she herself often was to me. They took advantage of me, by blackmail, threats, and also placing blame where blame was not due.
She smiled at my obvious distaste at meeting this Chester person as she restarted putting makeup on where she left off. Why she seemed to always take forever applying makeup, I never understood. I'm not anti-makeup, but I'm certainly not so into it that I have to spend hours doing and redoing my face.
"Just wait, Hun. Eventually," she put heavy emphasis on 'eventually', "you'll have someone who will put up with even you!" She laughed at her own cruel humor. I went into a kind of shock after that comment. She had just been being so nice, and now she was being cruel again. It felt like I had just gone from being in front of a blazing fire to being dumped in a frigid lake. I blinked back tears as I ran out the door. Lestat yowled after me, but I kept running.
The night air was cool on my burning cheeks. I wanted to run, and just keep running, but I knew I couldn't. I slowed to a walk once I reached the main road and watched little kids running around, laughing at their bags of candy and the costumes of their friends. I smiled sadly to myself, glad at least someone was happy on my birthday, even if that someone wasn't me.