Invested in Your Dreams

“Get your hands off of me,” Olivia said through gritted teeth as one of Ethan’s brothers- Nate, Lydia had heard him called- gently put his hand on her back to guide her through the front door. He held his hands up in a sorry motion, and she pushed past him, pulling oversized sunglasses off of her face. She took in the room around her, the grandiose chandelier and the grand staircase and the artwork, her hands on her hips as if she weren’t impressed with the place. Her gaze finally landed on her sister, standing at the foot of the steps.

            “Oh, God, Lydia,” she said, rushing forward and wrapping Lydia in a hug.

            Lydia sagged with relief. After so many months- years, really- of not truly speaking to each other beyond the bare minimum, she wasn’t sure what this first meeting would be like. She kept up with Olivia’s life through their older sister, but Maddie refused to play go-between with the two of them and only told her the smallest tidbits.

            Lydia was amused to see that they had the same hair style, their long brown hair hanging halfway down their backs with fringe bangs framing their faces.

            “Like looking in a mirror,” Olivia said.

            “That’s the only reason you’re smiling,” Lydia answered. For a moment, the whole room stood awkwardly at a standstill, waiting on the fallout from the remark.

            But then Olivia laughed, and the tension broke.

            “I have missed you so much,” she said. “What the actual hell is going on?”

            Lydia laughed. “I said the same exact thing,” she said. “God, I missed you.”

            Lydia linked arms with her sister and led her away from the chaos around them as more members of the team arrived, ushered inside by the cold wind that paradoxically accompanied the beautiful day. She pulled her toward the back of the house and out into the gardens.

            “This place is insane,” Olivia said, and Lydia nodded her head. As they walked around the garden, she filled her sister in, telling her why these strangers had shown up at her apartment, confirming the brief story they’d told her in the car. The maze of plants and cultivated nature kept catching Olivia’s eye, and Lydia felt a tug of the old annoyance that she couldn’t seem to keep her sister’s attention even now. She couldn’t blame her as much now, of course, with the incredible beauty surrounding them. The statues alone would have been enough to draw anyone’s attention away, but the gardens were a true work of art, and Lydia chided herself for immediately jumping back into old, familiar, painful rhythms with her twin.

            “At least they thought to bring a cop with them to my place,” Olivia said sullenly, pulling Lydia out of her own head as she drug her eyes away from a bed full of oversized purple flowers that showed no sign of wilting in the cool air. “I never would have believed them if a uniformed officer hadn’t told me to go. They look like a bunch of thugs.” She paused thoughtfully for a moment. “Sexy thugs, but still.”

            Lydia laughed. “Olivia!” she said. “Only you.”

            Olivia shrugged and then stopped walking, and Lydia turned to face her. “I’m so glad you’re okay,” Olivia said, hugging her once again.

            Lydia felt tears stinging her eyes. “I’m glad you’re okay, too. I’m sorry about all of this. You must be leaving behind a lot and missing a lot of fancy dinners and meetings, if I know anything about you.”

            A cloud crossed Olivia’s face, and Lydia braced herself. This is it, she thought. The day of reckoning had come: it was time to air out their dirty laundry.

            “Listen,” Lydia started, but Olivia held up her hand.

            “It was so dumb,” Olivia said. “You were right not to invest in the app. I was wrong. It was the stupidest idea I’ve ever had. No, I mean, it wasn’t. I’ve had a lot of dumb ideas. But you were working so hard to create some stability for yourself and after the way we were raised, I should have been doing that, too. I was still just in survival mode and I didn’t know how to get out or how to… be, you know. Stable. Like you were.”

            “I should have invested in your dreams,” Lydia said quietly. The app idea hadn’t been a dumb one at all. Olivia thought that they could create a platform where people could upload pictures of outfits and have other users vote on the outfit choices for different events. It was a simple concept, easily executed, easy to use, and Olivia wanted money to pay a developer to create it for her. She’d taken the time to create a portfolio and a presentation, and she’d put herself together so well, every bit the professional. Lydia remembered that night, the glitter eyeshadow on Olivia’s eyelids and the shine of the gloss on her lips; the sleek, fitted skirt suit she’d worn with perfectly professional heels and the way her mascara had run when her eyes watered as their conversation progressed into an argument. Neither of them had ever been technically inclined and had no idea how to go about actually creating the app. A guy Olivia knew from college agreed to do it for $500, and Olivia was so excited that she’d promised him the money by Friday, so certain that Lydia would share her savings account.

            But Lydia, barely paying her bills, struggling to put every dollar into her savings account and desperate to buy a home where she and her sisters could always have a safe haven to run to no matter what life threw at them, had refused. She’d watched Lydia’s carefully formed presentation, keeping her face calm and neutral as she listened to her excited sister spew forth her ideas with mounting enthusiasm, knowing by the second slide that she would refuse. And then she’d done it- she’d flat out refused.

            Olivia’s contact had been frustrated, having already started the work, and the bridge was burned. Lydia was embarrassed by her inability to provide the money, let down by her sisters lack of support in her own goals, and furious at Olivia’s entitlement; Olivia was hurt at Lydia’s lack of support and belief in her idea and embarrassed that she’d promised funds she couldn’t secure. They’d hurled angry words at each other for hours until, finally, Lydia packed her things and left their shared apartment to move in with her oldest friend.

            Four years had passed since then, and this was their first meeting. They’d tried, in the past, to reconnect, one of them sending a careful happy birthday text and the other responding with a gentle you, too, but the healing had taken time and they’d both been so consumed in their own affairs that they hadn’t made the effort to go beyond that.

            “I shouldn’t have treated yours so lightly,” Olivia answered. “You were working so hard. You had like three jobs.”

            Lydia laughed. “I still do, kind of.”

            “Look at you, though!” Olivia exclaimed. “Maddie told me you finally bought a house. No one in our family has ever done that. What is it like? Where is it? What’s it look like? How does it feel to be a homeowner?”

            “You should’ve been the journalist, with all of these questions,” Lydia laughed, feeling something heavy lift off of her shoulders at the sound of Olivia’s enthusiasm and sisterly pride. “It’s so perfect,” she said. “It’s a little yellow house with three tiny bedrooms and two little bathrooms. Two of the bedrooms are barely big enough to fit a full size bed in!” She laughed at the thought, remembering the way one of her broad shouldered friends had squeezed into the smallest room and how large he’d looked standing there, able to reach each wall when he spread his arms wide enough. “It’s on a quiet street just outside of Indy, and there’s this huge tree in the front yard. It turns bright yellow in the fall and one good rain storm brings all of these big fat leaves falling down like some sort of giant confetti. I want to hang a swing from it someday. There’s a little front porch and I just put two rocking chairs out there.”

            “Two?” Olivia raised her eyebrows.

            Lydia shook her head. “Wishful thinking,” she said, answering her sister’s unasked question. At the same time, Ethan’s face flickered unbidden through her mind, and she furrowed her brows. However nice he may be, the man had attacked her only days before. Why him? I mean, there are the muscles, she thought in answer to her own unspoken question. The muscles, the face, the jawline, the hair… She ducked her head to keep her sister from seeing her blush at the thought. “It’s a tiny little house,” she continued. “But it’s so perfect for me. I put the Christmas tree up in the living room, right in front of the windows, and from the sidewalk it looks like a postcard. My neighbors and I have started this tradition where we house-hop on Christmas day. We start at my place for brunch and coffee around ten in the morning, and then we have a late lunch at the Charstleton’s and dinner at Charlotte’s. Charlotte- she’s right next door in this sweet little blue house that’s about the same size as mine- only has her two dogs, but the Charstletons on the other side are an elderly couple and their two kids and grandkids come over early in the morning. But by ten or eleven, everyone is ready for coffee and a snack, and we all sit around my kitchen table talking and eating muffins while the Charstleton’s grandkids play in the living room. Last year the family across the street even joined us, and my house was just full to bursting with people and food everywhere.” She stopped, realizing that she was rambling. In the sudden silence, she choked back a sob, thinking of her broken window. “I love that house,” she said quietly.

            Her sister, sensing her sudden change in tone, wrapped her arms around her and held her close. “I can’t wait to see it,” she said tentatively. “Maybe I can join you this year?”

            Lydia laughed. “If this whole mess is finished by then,” she said sullenly. “It’s only a couple of months off. I just…”

            Olivia squeezed her shoulders. “I know,” she said. “Twin-brain.”

            Lydia laughed, wiping at her nose. “Let’s get inside before we both get sick,” she said. “And you can tell me all about your glamorous life.”

            As they walked back to the house, Olivia told her about her career: she was the social media expert at a clothing boutique that her friend owned, working in whatever capacity her friend needed her. Most of the time this consisted of a full time schedule that included part time cashier work, inventory work, and blog and social media updates. While the money wasn’t great, it was enough for her to afford a small studio apartment on her own in downtown Indianapolis and she had decent health insurance. She was proud of her streak of being on time with all of her bills, and she’d transformed her walk-in closet into a small office space. She worked from home often and enjoyed her quiet space, free of the chaos from their youth.

            Lydia was so proud of her sister, and so thankful they’d connected again beyond the strained, disconnected, impersonal messages that had felt more like misfires over the years. If all of this did nothing else, at least she had her sister back. For that, she was incredibly thankful to the powers that be that she was enmeshed in their entire ridiculous mess.