"Hello?"
"Hey, Is. It's me."
There was a brief pause.
"Ivo what's wrong?"
I sighed, unsure of where to begin.
"I hurt Tim," I said in a rush. It got caught it my throat halfway and made me choke.
"What do you mean," she asked severely.
Fiddling with the books on the desk I avoided the question for a moment until she pressed me.
"Ivo."
"I hit him," I blurted out. "He told me that he kissed someone and I punched him."
I chewed on my fingernails and waited for her response, knowing that I had only given her half of the story. I'd done much worse than that.
"I need you to tell me the whole story Ivo," she said softly. "Everything."
I'd missed my sister.
"He wanted to go out," I began. "To this club with his friends and I said it was fine."
I heard her give a quiet derisive laugh and I knew exactly what she meant by it.
"Not that he needed my permission," I said haughtily. She said nothing.
"He came home with lipstick all over him and I made a joke about it, he was so drunk and he just kept apologising. He told me that he'd met some girl at the club and they'd danced and kissed."
There were some crumbs on the table and I swiped them off with my sleeve.
"It didn't bother me until he started pushing it, saying how he forgot what it was like to kiss someone with lipstick and long hair. He wouldn't give over and he made me angry."
"So you hit him?"
"I...yeah."
"Then what happened?"
I felt a little sick at the thought of telling her. It was her or Martin though. The thought of Martin made me feel even sicker.
"He locked himself in the bathroom, I could hear him crying and throwing up," I told her dully. Remembering it all made me feel awful all over again.
"He wouldn't open the door for an hour," I complained, as if I had any right to.
"And he knows how worried I am about stuff like that, so when he did open the door he just pissed me off more and we had a fight."
"So Tim hit you?"
"Well...no, not really."
"Oh."
"He just sort of scrabbed at me to get me off him," I said slowly.
"Get you off him," she repeated. "What were you doing Ivo?"
I felt tears slowly sliding down my cheeks and stopping on my lips to leave a salty taste.
"I had him by the throat," I confessed. "He packed some of his things and tried to leave and I hit him in the stomach before putting him to bed and hoping he would forget it all."
I half laughed.
"He really is a marvelous liar Is, I guess we both know that. This morning he just pretended like nothing had happened."
"Oh God, Ivo. What have you done," she sighed.
I said nothing.
"What do I do?"
She gave me no answer except telling me to talk to him. That was the last thing I wanted to do. Maybe Tim wasn't pretending and didn't remember and in that case why should I bring it up only to upset him. If he was pretending then he clearly wanted to forget about it.
I felt worse now that I had told her. I could have just convinced myself that it was all part of some surreal nightmare.
In everything I do I seem to hurt Tim; whether I stay with him or if I leave him. When he had told me that we can't live with or without each other and he chooses to live with me, it was startlingly true.
Tim was in the front room, probably watching useless and unintelligent television programmes.
I would talk to him, it was only fair.