Rising Shards

I tried to not giggle as we waited for Stella. Diast talked me down from the running away prank idea, but we were still in a moment where we knew something Stella didn’t; that I knew about her and Diast. That thought made my head start to spin so I went back to holding in my laughter. It was a Faleur family tradition to wait until all parties were present before dinner, so the pleasant aroma of Ultra Taco wafted around the room as I counted down the minutes until Stella was home.

“How long does an orientation normally take?” I asked.

“It depends, really,” Diast said. “She’s faculty so it might not be as long. I’m guessing she’ll be home any minute.” Diast checked her phone. “She hasn’t written in a bit, but she’s offline so she’s maybe driving over here…”

I couldn’t help but smile.

“What? Shut up.” Diast said.

“I just think it’s nice you two text each other!” I said.

I had never seen Dr. Diast blush as hard as she did when I said that before. That more than anything made whatever the official title for what was going on between her and Stella feel real. She almost buried her face in her hands but held off when she saw me beaming. “I am super relieved you’re taking this so well, at least.” She said. “Don’t go run off when she gets here, alright? We need to rip the bandage off for her, too.”

I held my hands over my mouth to try and hold another laughing fit in.

“Alright, but hypothetically,” I said.

“Uh huh…?”

“Wouldn’t it be kinda super funny if I just hid in the bathroom or something then ran out to hug her?” I said.

“Zeta, she’s gonna be beat,” Diast said. “Do you really think she’s going to want to come back from this long orientation only to get scared about you right away?”

“It’ll be funny though!” I said. “I’m her sister, I know her better than anyone probably! I can take the Ultra Taco too so I can give her that to really ease her back down. Also, she kind of deserves this for all the stuff she keeps from me. And then I'll completely forgive you for getting roped into her secret keeping!”

Diast did some deep mental calculations. “…fine, you win.” She grinned. “I do wanna see the look on her face.”

I quickly formulated my plan and put it into action in the few minutes we had before Stella got home. I hid in the bathroom with the door open a sliver so I could somewhat observe the situation and more importantly sneak up on Stella, as long as she sat down across from Diast so she’d have her back to me. I hugged the bag of Ultra Taco as I excitedly kind of hopped around. Finally, the locks on the back door clicked. 

From my mostly blocked by door vantage point, Stella looked exhausted when she entered the kitchen, but her eyes started darting back and forth nervously when she saw Diast seated at the table.

“Um…” She started.

“Hey, Stel?” Diast said, putting on an excellent serious voice. It may have been a bit real too, since she did have to tell her what I now knew.

“What? What is it?” Stella asked. “What’s wrong?”

Diast beckoned for Stella to sit down across from her. “Zeta kinda…figured it out.”

“Wh…” Stella said, sitting down. We had positioned the chair opposite Diast so that she wouldn’t see me creep out behind her. Stella didn’t notice the chair at all, and all the pieces of my plan fell into place. “Where is she?” Stella asked, her voice dry.

“She…ran off.” Diast said.

“What do you mean, she ran off?” Stella asked.

I could only find the prank funny if I immediately let up on it, because Stella’s instant devastation bordered on me being way too mean, but she’d pranked me with worse stuff over the years, so I justified it that way. As she looked down at her hands, lost in thought already, I snuck up behind and hugged her. She screamed and flailed her arms around until she realized it was me.

“Oh, Zeta! It’s you!” Stella said. She looked back and forth between Diast and I. “Oh. You were…kidding.”

“Yeppers,” Diast said. “Did we get you?”

“You…very much did.” I still had my arms wrapped around Stella. “Oh, Zeta, I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you.”

“It’s fine,” I said, knowing sometimes it was best to just get to the point rather than say everything I wanted to say, in this case about Stella’s budding relationship. There would be plenty of time to talk more later, Stella was probably still coming to the realization that I knew about them. “Congrats. We got Ultra Taco to celebrate!”

I plopped the bag of Ultra Taco in front of her, then practically dove into the bag to grab my food from it because I was starving. We decided to eat in the living room instead of the kitchen so one of us didn’t have to stand the whole time and we could have TV on. Diast and Stella each sat in a recliner while I took the couch. Now that I knew, I observed them, trying to see if they acted any differently. Instead, Stella just glared at me.

“I don’t know if I should be concerned that you two are joint pranking already.” Stella said.

“It was her idea,” Diast said.

Stella glared at me even more intensely. “So your immediate reaction to learning about this was to prank me?”

“Uh huh.” I said between bites of my Deluxe Crunch Burrito Maximus. “It was funny, wasn’t it?”

We had a nice dinner, even if Stella and Diast were suddenly very businesslike when talking to each other. I don’t know if they were trying to be polite in front of me or they were just uncomfortable, but as the day went on, I could see a bit more of their natural chemistry.

“Evy, you got a little…” Stella said, throwing a bunch of napkins at Diast. “It’s all over your shirt, dude.”

“The Big Boy gets kind of sloppy, alright?” Diast said, wiping in vain at the various sauces and meats that she’d somehow spilled on herself. “Plus, I’m beat from going to Twin Wolves, my hand eye coordination is off.”

“You guys went to Twin Wolves?” Stella asked. “Wait, I didn’t even ask what you two did today!”

Dr. Diast pulled out her gift bag and put it on Stella’s lap. Stella searched through it.

“What is…you guys got a bunch of random stuff at Shafey’s?”

“There was a giveaway!” I said. “Exclusive Raina Starlight hair clips! I claimed those, but if there’s anything in there you want, you can have it!”

“It was some kind of weird, what was it called, ‘parent and kid giveaway’?” Dr. Diast said.

“Something like that,” I said. “And they totally bought me and Diast as parent and kid!”

“Did they now?” Stella asked. “Interesting.”

“We also won mat ball tickets,” I said. “And saw a portion of mat ball.”

“You did not get Zeta to go to a mat ball game. Where, at the stadium?” Stella laughed. “You’re joking.”

“We won the tickets, we had to try.” I said.

Full from the food, I got comfy on the couch as we watched TV. Stella told us about her work orientation, while Diast chimed in about the good vibes from the specific stuff Stella talked about and the faculty that would be a problem. I kind of expected teacher gossip, but Diast didn’t talk about anyone I knew. There reached a point where the conversation grew quiet, not because of anything bad, we were all just content. In that quietness, I had an idea.

“Is it cool if one night a week I stay here?” I asked.

“Oh,” Stella said. “I don’t see why not? What brought this on?”

“Like, after Oka’s Friday play practice she’s been spending the nights at her family’s house so. I think it’d be nice to do the same?” I said.

“I’d like that a lot,” Stella said. “One of the reasons we’re doing all this is so I don’t have to be so far from you, so, yeah.”

I lazily turned my head to her. “Stella, didn’t you say to never end a speech with ‘so, yeah’? You told me that’s a big no-no in any performance.”

Stella smiled as Dr. Diast laughed, finding that really funny for some reason.