Thursday, December 18 (still)

"We need to talk." No, that wasn't Mia. Or Judith. Or even my parents.

It was Lilly.

"I'm kind of busy," I had said, not glancing up from the computer screen. "Not to mention the fact didn't I specifically tell you not to ever come in here?"

"I think once I tell you," Lilly sniffed, "you'll be praising me as God."

I swiveled in my chair to face her, trying to hide my captured interest. "You get five minutes," I told her in what I hoped to be a no-nonsense term.

"Have you been getting love cards?" She asked bluntly.

I could feel myself turning red, with both anger and embarrassment. "Did you send them as some psychotic practical joke?" I fumed. It wouldn't have surprised me if it was a part of her stupid show.

"Slow down, Romeo," Lilly rolled her eyes. "I know who sent them."

"You do?" I knew my sister was smart but how could she even…?

"You dropped one a few days ago in the living room and I picked it up," Lilly began. "I looked at it and I recognized the handwriting as Tina Hakim Baba's."

My mouth dropped. "Tina? Does she even know who I am?"

She gave me a look that clearly said "duh."

"But that's besides the point," Lilly waved off. "I knew it couldn't have been Tina. Despite her problems with Dave, she's never looked twice at you. So I concluded that the person who had to be sending them was Mia."

I was stunned. "Is this some kind of joke?"

Lilly looked almost hurt for a moment. "Michael, I know you like her. It's so freaking obvious. Because you like her, I can't believe you think I would be that low to stoop and play such a cruel joke on you."

I gave a sigh of defeat and said, "Okay, fine. Sorry. But still… Mia? How did you go from Tina to… Mia? Your theory is clearly not thoroughly researched."

She turned an unpleasant shade of purple, but then seemed to calm down. "Well, you don't know Tina like I do, moron," she said slowly. "Tina is a hopeless romantic. Not to mention she doesn't have a lot of friends. Therefore, because of these two facts, she is the only appropriate accomplice Mia would turn to."

"That still doesn't explain why Mia might like me," I told her.

"It's so obvious. You walk in the room and she lights up. She always stares at you. She asks nonchalantly about you. Duh. It's been so painfully obvious for years that the two of you like each other."

"If it's so obvious," I said, "Why didn't you say anything?"

"I thought it would make an interesting social experiment to see how long the two of you would play that primitive dance of 'who can be more oblivious?'"

"And you decided to tell me now… because?"

"Because I'm flipping sick of it, and the paper I'm doing on it is due after break so I need to tell everyone how it ends."

I suppose I shouldn't have expected "because you're my brother and I hate to see you suffer. Not to mention Kenny is as interesting as a cow."

But whatever.

"That still doesn't change the fact that Mia has a boyfriend," I pointed out woefully.

Lilly looked disgusted. "Mia has insecurity issues and most likely thinks she's a freak because she doesn't have a boyfriend. Therefore, she accepts whoever jumps at her, no matter if she doesn't like them. Because in her delusional not-self-actualized mind, she thinks that over time, she can forget about you and love Kenny. But we all know that's not going to happen…. And it still hasn't." Lilly shook her head. "This would not be happening if she wasn't self-actualized."

"Well, what should I do about it?"

Lilly stared at me as though I were crazy. "What, you think I have all the answers or something? Figure it out."

And she left.

Sisters.

… But Mia likes me. I think. I hope.

If this is a practical joke, I swear to God she's going down. I'm going to get ten dogs and have them pee on her bed.

But if it's not…

well, hopefully things work out…

You know. Hopefully.

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Notes: I realized that I completely forgot about adding in the part where Lilly tells Michael about Mia. So I decided to just slip it in right here. This scene is kind of pivotal so I figured it should be all by itself.

I'm so sorry that this was not up sooner; I was awaiting reply from my editor… but I never got it. I'm not sure if the message didn't go through or whatever, but I didn't think it was fair for you guys to wait so long.

Next update? Um…. Soon. Maybe.

Thank you so much for all the reviews! They're very much appreciated!