Don't Ask Too Much

"Drastic times call for drastic measures," Mariah retorted lightly, a faint smile playing on her lips. She took another sip of the wine, feeling the warmth it produced radiating outwards from her core to the tips of her fingers. The more she drank, the easier it became to navigate the maze of strange sentiment she felt towards her sister. The boundaries blurred, and with each sip, she felt a floodgate holding back years of pent-up feelings slowly start to give.

Mariah found herself chuckling at Fia’s self-deprecating comment. "Your advice can't be any worse than mine," she quipped, her words slightly slurred from the wine. A sense of camaraderie was beginning to seep into the space between them, forged in the dregs of a shared bottle and littered with fragments of a fractured past- and Fia’s candid admission of no interference was surprisingly...comforting. The pause stretched on for a moment longer before Mariah finally broke it, a newfound determination glowing in her silver eyes. "Then …. I'll handle this my way … I'd rather make mistakes than have regrets ya’know?" Words were becoming a little difficult to articulate, but she managed to get the sentiment across, her voice ringing with a sense of resolution that had been absent just moments earlier.

But as the moments passed by, she couldn’t help but continue. “I just can’t call him that. Not to mom or dad. I don’t think I can call him that to Ava … I don’t want them pressuring him into this … this,“ She waved her paw- in an attempt to conjure the correct word. “Lifestyle. I guess.” It still didn’t sound quite right. But it was the best thing she could come up with. “I want him to be here because he wants to be. If I make him pick, he might not pick me. And … even if he did. Then I’m the bad guy who made him leave his family.” Where was all this emotion coming from?

"Mariah Mendacium"