Page 67 of The Book Swap
The door bangs again, harder this time. Turns out it’s quite a different service in Frome.
I pull on my gray tracksuit bottoms, and wander down the stairs, rubbing my eyes.
More banging. For fuck’s sake! Can’t they come back tomorrow? Fixing on my best “you’ve interrupted me” smile, I open the door a crack. The second I do, it gets shoved toward me and I fly backward.
Georgia comes bursting in, kicking the door shut behind her and marching into the kitchen.
“No way,” she says, turning around to face me, her eyes landing on my tracksuit bottoms. “You’re not doing this. Not again.”
Folding my arms, I lean against the wall.
“I can do whatever I like.”
“Actually, you can’t. This cannot be your cycle. Something bad happens to you and you shut yourself off in those trousers that belong in the bin. In fact—” her eyes widen as she advances toward me “—take them off.”
“No.”
“Take them off right now.”
“Absolutely not.”
She starts marching, arms outstretched, six months of baby bump protruding toward me.
She reaches for the waist of my trousers. “Stop it,” I shout, trying to move out of the way.
“Do not attack a pregnant lady. It’s dangerous,” she yells, getting her thumbs into my tracksuit bottoms and pulling them down as I scream.
“You’ve gone wild.”
“Maybe.”
I kick my feet against the legs of the trousers, shaking them down to stop my sister from fully undressing me like some kind of giant toddler. She tears off the final leg, rising up with wild eyes, her hair sticking up in the air.
Walking back to the kitchen, she throws them into the bin, eyes darting around the room before she walks, with determination, toward the fridge.
“What are you doing?”
She rummages around and reappears, victorious, clutching a tube of ketchup. She holds it over the top of the tracksuit bottoms and squirts out the entire tube, loud fart noises echoing through the room as she goes in for another double-handed squeeze. Making a circular motion with the last drops of the bottle, she swings it in the air before throwing it on top of the trousers, slamming the door shut and clapping her hands together.
Shaking my head, I walk back up the stairs and into my bedroom, climbing into bed. Georgia comes after me and stands over the bed.
“Get up,” she says.
“No.”
“Get up.”
“Why? I’ve got nothing to get up for.”
“You do. There’s a thing called life that’s been waiting for you for a fucking long time now.”
“Why are you making this your problem? Just leave me alone.”
I pull the duvet up to my neck, shrinking back against the wall. All the fire has gone from her eyes, and instead they fill with tears.
“I can’t. I won’t. Not this time.”
Lifting my head to the ceiling, I roll my eyes in frustration. Every so often Georgia gets this wave of guilt about what happened after we found out about Mum. After James saw her with Mr. Carter when she was meant to be picking up our fish and chips.