Member-only story
My Little Sister’s Forbidden Romance
She thought it was true love; I knew it was a cautionary tale.
My sister Kayla was nineteen when she joined a popular social media platform called Xero. Mom had been buried for six months when Kayla began to retreat more and more to her phone, and I was so busy with working at my corporate job that I didn’t think much of the way she seemed to text constantly on her phone. If she was happy, who was I to dissuade her?
My sister was a good girl, the kind who’d protect anyone in need of help, and she had a small circle of friends at the library where she worked part-time while going to school. I knew the stress got to be a bit much for her at times, but — again — I was so caught up in my own shit that I wasn’t paying attention to what was going on.
My mom would have killed me, I know it.
I started noticing little things that bothered me. Kayla would suddenly smile at her phone as if she’d been lit up by a lightbulb spark within. Or she’d stare down at the screen, the tinge of a blush coming to her cheeks. Oddest of all were the times she burst out laughing until she looked around, spooked, as if she had just realized she had made a mistake.
I should have put two and two together, but I didn’t.
