Reunited
It’s dark. It’s pouring rain. Her clothes are soaked through. Her hair is soggy. Her makeup is smudged. Her body is cold. Her fingers shake as she brings her knuckle up to the door.
“Vi?” Jinx stands in the doorway, her face pale and thin looking. “What are you… it’s been years?”
“Can I… come in?” Vi stands there, tears streaming down her face, her eyes stinging and bloodshot. She looks like a sad, lost dog. “Please?” she squeaks, her voice small and pathetic, the opposite of how she tries to present herself.
“Y-yeah,” Jinx says awkwardly. She doesn’t move from the doorway until Vi steps forward.
“Do you have a um… towel or-”
“What are you doing here?” Jinx says, rather accusatory. She crosses her arms, leaning against the wall.
Vi slinks to one of the kitchen chairs that wobbles as she sits down. She has to balance it with her foot to keep from falling off of it. She finds herself looking around. The kitchen is immediately in the doorway. It’s cluttered with wrappers and cans and bottles and dirty dishes.
“Fuck,” Vi whispers. She runs her hands through her hair, not able to stop herself from crying.
“You’re a mess.”
Vi chuckles slightly. It’s a throaty sound, full of pain and it hurts her throat to make the sound. “I know. I just… didn’t know where to go.”
Jinx walks up the stairs quickly, tripping over her own feet. She comes back downstairs with a towel in her hand, tossing it at Vi. Jinx sits in the chair across from Vi, watching as she ruffles her wet hair with the towel.
“Thank you, Powder. Now I guess I should explain-”
“Actually, it’s Jinx now.”
“Hm?”
“You know… everyone leaving me or dying kinda messes with you. I’m kind of a different person now… working on the streets and that’s my new name and I-”
“On the streets, are you a-”
“-not a prostitute. I just can’t really disclose what I do but yeah. It’s Jinx.”
“Fuck, I can’t believe I left you. I’m a horrible, horrible person. And an even worse sister.”
Jinx doesn’t agree or disagree, she just glances away from Vi’s cracked face. “Want some… I actually don’t know what I have.”
“Any form of alcohol or drugs or- fuck even coffee, what’s up with me.”
“Actually, there’s this new street drug called-”
“Yeah so not drugs, got beer?”
“I think it’s very old.”
“But it is still alcohol, so, I would like some,” Vi says.
Jinx leans back in her chair, very precariously to open the fridge directly behind her. She pulls a beer out of the fridge in an almost upside down position. Vi can’t help but reach out towards Jinx, just in case she needs to catch her. Ironic, she can’t help but think.
“Here,” Jinx mumbles, tossing the beer over.
Vi pops it open on the edge of the table and takes a sip. She gags so aggressively, she is worried she’s going to stop breathing. “It’s um… thanks, P-Jinx,” she corrects herself.
Jinx nods, ringing her hands together. “Okay, what is this?”
Vi bites her lip, trying to look anywhere but Jinx’s face. But she can’t, she knows she has to. “Jinx… I’m so, so fucking sorry. I can’t believe I left you. I left you when we were both alone, all we had were each other, and I left you. Even more alone. And now… I’m alone again. And you’re all I have. And I hate, hate how it feels like I’m just coming to you because I have nowhere to go. But… I need my sister.”
Vi is quietly crying into her hands as she finishes her little speech, trying to hide her emotions by that facade that she always does.
Jinx frowns, furrowing her brows together. “Damn, Vi… I can’t- it’s just…” Jinx trails off, scanning her sister’s face. “I missed you,” she finally settles on that.
Vi rests her head on the table, tucking it into her arm. “God, I don’t deserve your forgiveness…”
“No, you probably don’t but, I also don’t deserve yours and you haven’t even brought it up.”
Vi peaks up from her arm, just glancing at Jinx’s face. Jinx’s eyes seem empty and manic as they dart around the room, thinking about everything that has just conspired.
“I just got dumped.”
Jinx bites her lip and huffs out a small laugh. “Why is it that everyone in our life leaves us?”
“Why is it?” Vi asks, laughing slightly. She sits up straight, finally looking Jinx in the eyes. “You also look like a mess.”
“Oh, I know. Nobody looks like a hot mess the way we look like a hot mess.”
“Emphasis on the hot,” Vi says, flicking her eyebrows.
Jinx smiles slightly and shakes her head. “Yeah, not right now. We’re just messes.”
“I know.”
“Why did she- was it?”
“Yeah, it was cup- erm, uh, Caitlyn.”
Jinx lulls her head back in her chair, pressing the chair on its back legs to lean back. She flails limply and sighs. “Well, you have me again.”
“And you have me again.”
“You’re sure?”
“Hm?” Vi asks.
Jinx sits up straight. “You’re not going to leave me again, right?”
Vi shakes her head, biting the inside of her cheek. “No, never and I… feel so fucked that you have to even ask me that.”
Jinx smiles. “The house isn’t exactly… nice or put together, or even functional. However! I do have a spare bedroom and a bathroom with sometimes working water. If you wanted to stay here?”
Vi takes a sip of the beer, gags, spits it out slightly, wipes the dribble off her mouth with the back of her hand and nods. “I would love to stay here with you, sis. Also outta curiosity, do you have like… hair dye or maybe a piercing gun perhaps, or even just a sterilized needle I could- nah, scratch that, even a paper clip that is slightly sharp, doesn’t need to be sterilized?”
“Yeah, nooooo,” Jinx chuckles, hissing out her words. “We’re not going to be doing those kinds of things, especially not tonight.”
“Alright, then a bed and spare clothes?”
“I have a mattress and some fucked up sweats?”
“Perfect, that’ll do.”
Jinx smiles and Vi stands up, wrapping her arms around her sister in a hug. Jinx stands there, limp for a few seconds, confused. Then she slowly lifts her arms, pressing them into Vi’s back.
“That’s a little tight, Pow-Jinx,” Vi mumbles.
“Sorry… I don’t-”
“I know, and it’s my fault.”
Jinx tucks her hair behind her ear. “You need to go to bed.”
Vi presses her lips together and nods. “I missed you.”