Circle of Death Read Free Page A

come to love my fuller, voluptuous figure, but I never heard the end of it from my mom when I was growing up. She was born in Japan, and always boasted a super-slender figure. My older sister, Juliet, inherited her body type, but I took after my English-born father. You can’t pick your parents, and you certainly can’t pick what you get from them out of the genetic grab bag.
    “At least you’re graduating at the top of your program,” Emma points out, “I don’t even think they bother to rank us in the Fine Arts department, but if they did I certainly wouldn’t want to know about it.”
    “That’s true,” I allow, “I did kind of kick this degree’s ass, huh?”
    “I’ll say!” Emma smiles, “You even managed to snag a minor in psych like some kind of academic superhero.”
    “To be fair,” I point out, “My psych classes were mostly introductory. And all we did for the most part was fill out weird personality quizzes and try to psychoanalyze our parents.”
    “No wonder you had such an easy time of it. Think about all the material you have there,” Emma smirks.
    “Ha, ha,” I say, shrugging out of my ridiculous green gown, “You’re a regular laugh riot, Emma Sanders.”
    “I’m here all week,” she mugs, laying out across my bed. “Aren’t you glad you’re going to be stuck with me for the foreseeable future?”
    “I really am though,” I tell her sincerely.
    Emma and I have been living together since sophomore year of undergrad, when we were randomly assigned to the same dorm room. You’d think there wouldn’t be much for us to talk about—she’s an abstract painter, I’m an aspiring media type. But in a school overrun with Greek life and hardcore athletics, we were lucky to find each other. We stuck together for the rest of our undergraduate careers, and just found a tiny two-bedroom apartment to share after graduation. Emma’s already snagged a job as an artist’s assistant here in Boston, and while I haven’t been so lucky job-wise, I’m determined not to move back home with my parents. I don’t care if I have to sling coffee, or walk dogs, or babysit some horrible rich kids. I’m going to make it work.
    “Come on,” Emma says, rolling onto her feet, “It’s already three minutes past five. I need a drink.”
    “Yeah, OK,” I agree, gathering my long black hair into a bun and securing it with my signature hair sticks—the only thing passed down to me from my mother, besides raging social anxiety. “I could really use one, after today.”
    Emma skirts off to find her purse as I drop into my desk chair, absentmindedly checking my social media pages and favorite blogs. Not much to see on Facebook and whatnot, as per usual. I don’t exactly have a large group of friends. Or any group of friends, for that matter. There’s Emma, sure, and some people from my study groups and classes, but not many people that I’d consider honest-to-god friends, despite what Facebook might call them. But to be honest, my lack of close friends makes perfect sense.
    It’s sometimes said that sisters are built-in best friends, and for me and my sister Juliet, this was absolutely true. At least, it was when we were little. She’s two years older than me, and I absolutely idolized her when we were growing up. Juliet was always leading me off on epic adventures and insanely fun antics. Whether we were staging full-scale Spice Girls musicals in our shared bedroom, teaching each other how to do cartwheels in the backyard, or breaking into my mom’s makeup case for surreptitious (and poorly executed) makeovers, there was never a dull moment with Juliet around.
    But as we grew older, that adventurous spirit turned rebellious. My mother was a strict taskmaster, and my father let her rule over the household—and us girls—with an iron fist. She and Juliet butted heads ceaselessly from the time my sister hit her teenage years. And the harder my mom tried to hold on, the more desperate Juliet grew