A Taste of Spring

Chapter 16

A single-year age difference and Summer thought she got to claim dibs on the world.

"You fed me the fricking basics, Two," Summer called out as Spring walked toward the kitchen. "Just tell me already."

"I don't have to tell you anything. I moved here to do me. To do what I wanted and not what everyone else thinks is best for me. And stop calling me Two." Spring hated the nickname. That gift was the only thing she resented from her sweet old grams.

Spring was told on several occasions how "Two" became her moniker. Apparently, she was stricken with the horrible tag on the day of her birth when her mother, "The Witch Who Shall Not Be Named" looked into her face and said "Spring". Her mother never gave a reason why she picked the name Spring, but common sense would suggest that her mom named Summer over a year before and thought they were a matching pair so...

Grams later said that she was so irritated by the Summer/Spring thing that she said, right there in the hospital room, 'You may as well call them Thing One and Thing Two'. It was meant as a joke, at least that's what Spring surmised, but the tragedy was that it stuck like burnt grits. Now everyone in her family called her Two.

"Unlike you, dear little sister, I don't mind my nickname. It is amazing, like me."

Spring looked over the breakfast bar that separated the small galley kitchen from the living room and saw the gloating look on her sister's face. How she looked flawless despite a red nose and watery eyes was beyond Spring, and honestly it was kind of creepy. Like "Pod-People" creepy, but that was Summer, bright, happy, and flawless.

"Ugh, I hate you." Spring opened the freezer and took out an orange crème ice bar. She shed the wrapper and had the frozen goodness in her mouth before the wrapper settled in the garbage can.

"Just share and get it over with. You know if you don't, I'll just keep bothering you until you do. Remember when you tried to keep your crush on Brett Murphy a secret? How did that work out for you? It didn't. I know something happened"

"Why do you think something happened?" Spring flopped back down on her chair and glanced around the room for the remote.

"Oh, I don't know...you're eating my ice cream and you never eat ice cream."

Spring looked over at Summer who was splayed out on the sofa, twisted and facing her, then to the mass of tissues, a half-eaten dried-up bowl of noodle soup, and the stack of fashion magazines that littered the coffee table. It was a week ago that she stepped in for Summer and went on a date with Dezmond, and Summer was still sick.

Spring thanked God she wasn't sick but she felt "off" ever since the Dez incident. She couldn't keep her mind from reliving every moment she spent with the man that night. From the first moment she set eyes on him to the last look she gave him as she snuck out of his loft while he slept, Dez was in her head.

Because Spring couldn't purge her mind of him, she was distracted and doing things she normally didn't do, like eating ice cream. Aside from the caloric deterrent, ice cream and Spring weren't friends. They weren't even on speaking terms.

"I eat ice cream," Spring said, trying to sound convincing. She was definitely going to be paying for it later but whatever.

Ignoring her sister's continuous stare, Spring focused on the television. The entertainment news show was about a girl whose body was found in a park, in this city. At first, Spring wasn't really interested in the story or the overdramatic host. She was more or less using it to avoid Summer, but when she heard the anchor mention a single piece of unwrapped blue candy, Spring gave the report her full attention.

"Clara Warner left her spin class over a week ago. We can assume that she wasn't thinking it would be her last time. When she kissed her mother that morning, I am sure she didn't expect that some sick creep would hunt, rape, torture, then kill her." Contentt bel0ngs to N0ve/lDrâ/ma.O(r)g!

The host was way over the top with her news read. Spring rolled her eyes but continued to watch.

"This animal has crossed a line that our society has set for these creeps who prey on us. He cannot be allowed to walk these streets. We," the anchor slammed her fist on the desk, "have to put an end to this blatant, sadistic killer. It seems his reach is further than the police thought. Sources tell me that he may be responsible for a murder in Florida. That's practically 900 miles away. My sources also say that the same blue candy was found in the victim's mouth, just like with lovely Clara Warner, Elizabeth Hart, and Genny Merkle."

"Ow," Spring said as her head snapped to the side when she was hit by the pillow Summer threw at her. "You cow." Spring tried to catch her cream bar before it hit her shirt, smashing it against her chin and neck. "Look what you made me do." She gave Summer an accusatory glare before getting to her feet and quickly walking to the bathroom down the hall.