Coming Up For Air | ✓

7 | sister, sister on the call

Pausing—fingers laced around the edges of her woven bedroom curtains—, Stella takes her eyes off the dark night sky and throws a glance at her phone where it's propped up against a bottle of sunblock on the bureau.

"Tell me you're not still working,"

On the screen, Faye absentmindedly brushes a dark brown strand of hair having come loose from her annoyingly perfect messy bun away. She tucks it behind her ear, a notch of concentration between her brows as her gaze narrows at something off-screen.

In this moment, it's almost as if looking into a mirror. And while Faye's features are rounder, gentler and smoother—as if all that swimming has sharpened Stella, from her strong set of shoulders to her lean muscles, their resemblance is clear as day. The brown eyes and even darker hair, with the loose baby curls framing their faces. The small bump on the slope of their noses, though Stella's is dotted in sun-freckles compared to Faye's, who's fair skin has barely been sun kissed at all.

Pulling the curtains closed on the view of the lake bathed in darkness, Stella turns around all together.

"Faye?"

Sheets of paper rustling—the sound first having caught Stella's attention—comes through from Faye's end of the FaceTime call again, followed by the scribble of a pen.

"Hmm?" Her sister says, having Stella's lips curl into a small smile, though concern briefly flickers through her mind as well.

Glancing up, Faye notices Stella's eyes on her. "Oh. No– I just, had to check on something. Real quick."

Stella moves through the room, grabbing one of her cashmere sweaters where it lies discarded on her bed and pushes it into the top-drawer of her bureau. "Can't you do that tomorrow?"

"I'm done now," Faye raises her empty hands in surrender just as Stella slips into a too big white t-shirt. "Look, all done! I'm putting it away now."

"Completely away?"

"Yes. And in a while I'm going to watch an episode of New Girl and get to bed."

"Good."

Stood before the mirror, Stella separates her hair and braids it into two pigtails only to let out a frustrated sigh as they fall unevenly over her shoulders. A puff of minty breath comes along with it and tickles her nose before it dissipates, leaving room for the light scent of shea butter to linger in the air.

Taking her phone with her as she moves to the bed, the hours she's spent in the sun today begins to catch up to her, enveloping her in a comfortable tiredness now that she's surrounded by nothing but stillness.

She bats her eyelashes a few times, stifling a yawn as she falls onto her back and lets her head hang over the edge of the bed—pigtails falling toward the floor. The bureau is somewhat upside down in the corner of her eye as she holds her phone before her.

Sat against the backdrop of her light gray living room wallpaper, Faye seems to have conjured up a slice of toast out of nowhere. She bites into it, brushing some fallen crumbs off her faded—and battered beyond its worst days—Taylor Swift t-shirt. Once a loose fit on an eleven-year old girl, it's snug around Faye's curves.

Frown slipping back into place, Stella purses her lips. "Have you had dinner?"

Pointedly, Faye bites into her slice of toast, sending another wave of crumbs to her chest, and shoots Stella a look through the screen.

"Bread doesn't count."

"Says who?"

"Me," Sensing her blood rush to her head, leaving a faint dizziness to her mind and a few red blotches to her skin, Stella heaves herself back into a seat. "And probably every other sensible person out there."