I follow her gaze to Blair’s house. “Is this about Blair again? Julia, I can have a best friend and still love my sister. The two are not mutually exclusive.”

“Yeah, but since we were kids, you two have always shoved me to the sidelines of your cool lives.”

That’s such a distorted view of reality, I’m appalled. “Julia, I hate to break it to you, but teenagers don’t like to hang out with younger kids. Two years might seem like a short gap, but it’s not when you’re in high school. And I’m not saying it was very mature of me or right not to spend time with my little sister, but it’s the way teenage girls act. And Blair and I were never such cool kids; you’ve always been more popular than us, even when we were seniors and you were just a sophomore. You were Prom Queen, for goodness’ sake!” I take a breath. “Plus, I don’t share parents with Blair, which makes it a lot easier to be around her.”

“Why?”

“Because whenever I look at Blair, I don’t feel like I got the shallow end of the gene pool.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning you got Mom’s blonde hair, the better looks, the bubbly personality… I’ve always been the shy introvert, and it didn’t help that whatever I did, you had to go and prove you could do better. Ballet as kids, swimming in high school, life in New York, and then Paul.”

“I didn’t do it to prove I was better, I did it to prove I was worthy. That we could be friends, that we liked the same things.”

That shuts me up all right. “I never saw it that way,” I confess. “I’ve always assumed you were competing with me.”

“No. And, Nik, you didn’t get the shallow end of the gene pool. You have bigger boobs…” And a bigger ass, I comment inside my head. “…and you won’t believe how much I envy your dark, straight hair. I hate my golden curls.”

“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. You’re a natural blonde; half the women on the planet would kill for hair like yours, including me.”

Julia grimaces. “Guess we’re hard-wired to want what we don’t have.”

“Are you really saying you’ve never wanted to compete with me?”

Julia smirks. “Maybe a little, but everything I did was mostly to impress you.”

I stare at my sister as if I’m seeing her for the first time.

“Wow, we should’ve had this conversation ages ago.”

“I know. And I’m sorry for everything…”

“Me, too.”

“Well, you did nothing wrong, whereas with Paul… I screwed up big time. But I’m so happy you’re over him now. And I’m also over the moon for you and Diego.”

A small knife jacks its way into my heart at the mention of Diego’s name.

“Are you?”

“Yeah, I was so relieved when you brought him home.” Julia chuckles. “I mean, I was also a little jealous, to be honest, because he’s really a guy out of a fantasy. I even went as far as accusing you of not really being together, and of having brought home a friend to play your fake boyfriend just to steal my thunder… How absurd.”