By the time we make it back to our street, Bailey and I are over an hour late.

The sun is slowly setting up ahead, casting an orange-pink haze over the rooftops around us, hugging our quiet street with the last of its warmth in a final bid "goodnight".

Normally, I would find this soft haze oddly calming – warm, fuzzy, and effortlessly serene. Right now, however, as the sight of our front door grows inevitably closer with each new step, I don't feel calm.

I don't feel calm, at all.

Because I know that Stella and George are going to be pissed. In fact, I know that they're already pissed – and it has absolutely nothing to do with Bailey's fake job, the Coleman's, or the web of lies we've woven.

They don't even know about any of that yet.

No – they'll be pissed because we're late and, like a monumental dumbass, I completely forgot to let them know that we would be.

I never replied to Stella's message back at the café, the one asking how Bailey's shift was going. I chose not to reply because I didn't want the responsibility of having to either confirm or deny her question – at least, definitely not over a text.

This non-existent job that Bailey lied about is her mess to fix – not mine. And at the time it seemed that any response I gave, be it a lie or the truth, would be loaded with the potential to backfire on me.

Lying would have just dragged me further into Bailey's bomb of bullshit, and would've risked Paul and Ellie being caught in the explosion. But telling the truth would've caused problems in the form of questions – questions that would be better answered by the girl in question, not me.

And so, using ignorance as my final line of defence, I left Stella on read and decided to deal with the drama once I got home – with Bailey and in person – because it seemed like the best option at the time.

As I said, this lie is Bailey's mess to fix. I'm merely collateral damage, by this point.

But then I just had to go and forget to warn Stella that we'd be running late, as if the situation wasn't already bad enough.

With my phone on silent, it took me a lot longer than it should have to realise she'd been blowing it up with a bunch of, 'Where are you?'s. By the time I realised, the damage was already well past done – irreversible and unsalvageable.

And it's only going to get a whole lot worse the moment I step through that door, open my mouth, and let the truth out. Then, they'll really have something to be angry about.

Honestly, the apprehension alone is making me feel sick to my stomach. It's making my kneecaps turn to jelly and my lungs work twice as hard, squeezing painfully with every breath I manage to suck in.

They're going to hate me.

But, let's face it, I only have myself to blame for that.

It might be Bailey's mess, but I'm well aware that I'm too far into it with her to ever come out unscathed. I've told so many lies, covered for her so many times, that I can't even remember what the first fib was anymore.

They'll hate me because I'm late. They'll hate me because I lied. They'll hate me because I let all of this happen.

They'll hate me.

...But I don't want them to hate me.

The rest of the journey home has been spent in total silence, with Bailey storming on ahead as I trailed behind.

I tried calling after her a few times but she ignored me. She didn't even look at me. The only indication that she'd heard me at all was the way her feet sped up at the sound of her own name, increasing their irate tempo as she marched even further ahead.

I mean, it really says a lot, doesn't it? That of the two options facing her – the Crawford's wrath or my concern – she actually made the effort to get home faster.

It's a reaction that concretes my theory, like the words are now carved into a newly laid slab of pavement: Bailey's scared. Bailey needs help. The pavement dries with every hurried step she takes, the words solidifying in front of my eyes.

Because I don't think Bailey's in such a hurry because she's angry. I think she's rushing because she's trying to run away, from both me and the questions I want to ask her – questions like, 'what the hell is going on with you?'

I don't know how I know that it's true. I don't know how I know but I do.

Call it a sister's intuition, call it telepathy, call it impossible... but I know I'm right about this. There's something haunting Bailey – scaring her, troubling her, bothering her. I just don't know what.

It's in the stiffness of her shoulders, the tight curl of her fists. It's in the way she ignores me, her silence – like she's trying to close herself off so she doesn't have to talk about it.

Bailey doesn't like to talk – to Karen, to Stella, to me. She never has.

It's textbook Bailey.

But, up until now, I've never really questioned why – or what she might be hiding with her silence.

"Because they make me feel safe."

Well, she was talking then. She definitely said that.

I just don't know what she meant by it.

Bailey doesn't stop moving until she's actually on our doorstep, her back to me as I fall to a stop behind her. I notice the way she holds her house key stiffly between her fingers, her feet hesitating for the first time as she stands and stares at the door in front of us.

It's a hesitation I understand all too well. I feel it, too. Neither of us wants to step through this door right now; neither of us wants to face the Crawford-shaped consequence that's waiting just behind this thin slab of UPVC.

"They'll already be pissed that we're so late," I mutter from where I stand, only a step or so behind her right shoulder. I force a bravado that I absolutely do not feel as I say, "Let's not keep them waiting."

But Bailey still doesn't move – I don't think she even breathes – and I suddenly find myself wishing I had a clearer view of her expression.

I can't see her face. From this angle, the most I can see is the way she clenches and unclenches her jaw a few times. Then, after a few more seconds, she finally takes a deep breath in.

With her back still facing me, she squares her shoulders and finally speaks.

"Are you going to tell them?"

Her voice is low – dark – and I honestly can't tell if it's a question or a threat.

Tell them which part, exactly?

"About the Coleman's... or about you?" I ask.

And, by 'you', we both know exactly what I mean – that there's something going on with her, that she's quite clearly not okay.

I expect her to get angry again. I expect her to get defensive, call me a bitch or something, and tell me to piss off. But she doesn't.

"...Both."

She speaks the word so quietly, I almost don't catch it. But I do and that word alone is enough to confirm my suspicion. It's a word that makes my gut churn uncomfortably, pushing all of my problems – the apprehension, the nausea, everything – to the back of my mind.

I don't have time for my own personal crisis when my sister's in the midst of one, too. My shit can wait.

"Bailey..." I sigh, reaching forward to gently curl my fingers around the back of her wrist. "Talk to me. What's going on?"

She pauses for almost a minute, the tension in her silence so thick that I almost fold and repeat the question, convinced that she's not going to acknowledge it the first time. But, before I can speak the words again, Bailey pulls her wrist from my grasp and turns to face me.

We study each other for a few seconds, her eyes skittish and calculating as they flicker over every inch of my face, dancing like a flame. I'm sure mine appear to be doing something similar, taking in her small, worried frown – so unlike the scowl I'm used to – and the conflicted uncertainty that clouds her eyes.

After a few seconds of silent scrutiny, Bailey presses her lips together. Then, her eyes seem to light up with a newfound determination as she takes a deep breath in through her nose, and opens her mouth to speak.

"I..."

But that's it; that's all I get. That's all she gives me before she snaps her mouth shut faster than a piranha, her eyes dulling back into their guarded reservation – dim and defeated.

"It's nothing," she sighs, turning back to the door.

But anyone who knows anything knows that 'nothing' always means 'something'.

I catch her hand in mine as she raises the key to the lock.

"Bailey..." I whisper, sounding something close to desperate – which, in a way, I guess I am. Desperate to know what the fuck is going on because the look on her face is now scaring me. "Please."

She'd been just about to tell me, I could see it in her eyes. She was so close to opening up to me... so why didn't she? Why does she feel like she can't talk to me, confide in me? She always used to.

It hurts to realise that Bailey doesn't trust me like she used to. Growing up, it was our trust in each other (Charlotte, too) that kept us going. I've always vowed to look out for her, to protect her... I thought she knew that.

Somewhere along the way, that message has quite clearly been lost in translation.

It's a realisation that quickly brings on another, because it now seems that I'm faced with yet another decision to make.

...and this one's a bit of a doozy.

I can either, A: go inside and tell the Crawford's everything – the fake job, the Coleman's... all of it – just as I'd originally planned to.

Only, now, I'll be risking more than just Bailey's eternal hatred. I'll also be risking her silence... because there's no way she'd ever open up to me if I went and betrayed her like that. It wouldn't matter how good my intentions are, or what my reasoning is.

Bailey would never trust me again. She would never tell me whatever she was just about to say. She would never tell me what's got her so scared, or why she seems to think she needs the Coleman's in her life to help her feel safe.

And there's no guarantee that she'll ever tell anyone else, either.

She refuses to talk to a therapist, she picks fights with our foster parents, and she downright despises Karen and Noah. Charlotte's away too much to get through to her, and Bailey barely tolerates the boys most of the time. She keeps everyone at arm's length.

Everyone except him...

The only other person she might confide in (if she hasn't already) would be Alex. Only, the second I out their friendship to Stella and George, he'll no longer be an option for her, either.

If I can't get her to talk to me, and I stop her from being able to talk to him, then she may never open up – ever. Not even if it's something serious, something that she needs to tell someone about.

She could live the rest of her life in this angry, protective shell she seems to have built up around herself – isolated, scared, and unhappy. And it would be completely my fault.

Or, there's option B: keep quiet about the Coleman's (and her friendship with Alex) in order to keep what little trust she has left in me.

I'll need her trust if I ever want her to open up to me; I need her to trust me enough to tell me what's really going on.

And, truthfully, I need her trust back for my own selfish reasons, too... because she's my sister. Because we're Charlotte, Jade, and Bailey – we're a team – and losing that would be like losing a lifeline. An extremely fundamental lifeline, and one that I couldn't imagine ever being able to survive without.

But... if I don't tell the Crawford's everything, if I don't fess up, then I would risk Bailey sneaking off to see Alex again. I would risk her risking everything else – our family, our home.

Bailey could ruin everything, we could lose everything... and then that would be my fault.

Lie to help Bailey... or tell the truth to protect our family.

I'll tell you this for nothing: I'm getting really sick of choices.

Family comes first – that's what I've always said, right?

Bailey or my family; my family or Bailey. But Bailey is my family and so, really, the choice is now family or family.

And I have no idea how I'm supposed to choose.

"Do whatever you gotta do, Jade," Bailey mumbles, as she finally slots the key into the lock and turns it. She sounds miserable, utterly defeated as she sighs, pushes the door open, and says,

"Just leave me alone."

***

The screaming match between Stella and Bailey has been going on for about fifteen minutes now. It started as soon as Bailey and I entered the kitchen, when Bailey opened her mouth and snarked out the words, "Sorry we're late, but can we not turn this into some big fucking drama?"

As I'm sure you can imagine, her words did not go down well.

Stella and George – who were both sat at the kitchen table, nursing mugs of coffee with identical frowns of disapproval and disappointment – hadn't even said anything at this point. Bailey never gave them the chance to.

It was a bit like watching a deodorant can being thrown into an open fire, the chaos that followed. One minute, everything was relatively calm and contained, and then the next – Bang!

Stella exploded.

I'm not sure what counted as the final straw: the fact that we were late, Bailey's attitude about it, or Bailey's colourful choice of language.

"Don't you dare take that tone with us, Bailey! We have been worried sick for the past hour, trying to get hold of the both of you!" Stella briefly turned her furious glare in my direction and I felt my entire body shrink in response.

It was a strange feeling, like my bones were trying to melt into a puddle on the floor so I could somehow hide underneath the fridge, as opposed to being leant back against it.

When she was sure she'd gotten her point across, Stella turned her wild eyes back to Bailey.

"Your attitude is absolutely appalling, young lady! It has been for a while! That was not a real apology, you are not about to leave this room without giving us one, and I will not be spoken to like that under this roof!"

Of course, Bailey only retaliated with an even worse attitude and even fouler language.

Hence the screaming match that I'm now witnessing in front of me, unbridled fury mashing with wild defiance to create a volcanic eruption so violent, not even Mount Vesuvius could top it. In fact, I'm low-key surprised that the cabinets haven't fallen off the walls, what with the way their loud voices are bouncing off the lino floor and rebounding around the small kitchen. 

Meanwhile, I seem to have lost the ability to speak altogether.

I know I should apologise for being late. I know I should speak up about Bailey's latest lie. But I can't.

All I can do is watch on in horrified fascination as my sister accuses Stella of being "so fucking overbearing, it's physically sickening!" – although it's not really her words that I'm focussing on.

I can agree that Bailey's being a complete brat right now, and I can fully understand why Stella is getting so irate but, at the same time, all I can really think at this second is:

Stella... just look at her!

Because if Stella stopped listening to Bailey's words like me – if she actually looked at her like I am – then she might see what I'm seeing, too. She might actually see what, up until now, I've been too ignorant to notice.

There's absolutely nothing defiant about Bailey's defiance, right now. Her glare, her stance, her whole demeanour – it's not defiant, it's defensive.

I can see it in the way she struggles to keep eye contact with anyone in the room, her gaze dropping to the floor whenever the venom stops spitting from her mouth. I can see it in the way she folds her arms across her chest, like she feels the need to protect herself somehow even as she fakes a good attack. And I can see it in the way she blinks a few too many times when Stella finally sighs and says, "I just don't know what to do with you anymore, Bailey..."

Please look at her. Please see what I'm seeing. Please see that there's something wrong with her...

But from the expression on Stella's face, I can tell that she sees none of it.

I take a deep breath in, preparing to say something... but the air lodges in my throat and I pass the resulting cough off as a sigh. I can feel my chest restricting, squeezing my lungs like there's a python trapped inside my ribcage, but I pretend it's not happening.

How can they not see that there's something wrong with her?

I look away from Bailey for the first time, my eyes finding George from where he still sits at the table, his hand still curled around his coffee mug. I stare at him in the hope that he might've noticed something, even if Stella hasn't, but I find that he's too busy noticing me instead.

He's wearing that same expression he wore yesterday, that concerned frown paired with an unnerving level of scrutiny – and his eyes remain focussed on my hands, balled so tight into fists by my sides that my knuckles are paper-white and blotchy. I don't notice the way my nails dig into my palms until I realise that George has, but once I do I make a very obvious effort to relax my tense fingers.

Not me, I think at him, willing him to hear my thoughts. Not me; Notice Bailey.

But, of course, he doesn't – because Bailey has spent far too long perfecting this persona for herself, hiding the stuff she doesn't want anyone to see by masking it with a shit-tonne of surface-level, snarkastic bitchiness. 

If Bailey hadn't slipped up earlier, I would never have noticed her, either.

"So," George speaks up for the first time since Bailey and I entered the kitchen. He leans back in his chair and stretches his legs out in front of himself, appearing much too relaxed for the tense atmosphere still permeating the kitchen. "How did your first shift go, Bailey?"

He speaks the question like it's some kind of ice-breaker, as if the words are intended to dispel the argument around us. Obviously, the question is aimed at Bailey, but George's attention doesn't seem to waver from me as he asks it.

His worried eyes still study me, and I sort of get the impression that his attempt to quell the fight is more for my benefit than anyone else's. Perhaps he thinks it's what's causing my discomfort – that I'm tense because the atmosphere is tense – and he's looking for a way to make it stop.

And here it is, my opportunity to make them see. Because even if I'm still stuck on a decision about whether or not I should tell Stella and George everything – if it would be worth losing Bailey, and risking her well-being, by speaking the truth – there's one thing I definitely can tell them. The one truth I've been planning to tell them ever since I left work this evening.

And it might just be a big enough truth to make them actually look at her, for once.

Finally finding my voice before Bailey has the chance to take this lie any further, I speak the words I've been planning to say all evening.

"She doesn't work at Wilsons..." I say, looking between George and Stella. I try to ignore the way Bailey's mouth drops open in shock, her eyes widening as if she hadn't actually expected me to say anything, at all.

Her shock only serves to harden my resolve because, whatever the hell it is that's going on with her, I still need her to understand that she can't keep dragging me into her lies like this. She can't keep putting me in this position – and she absolutely cannot risk Paul and Ellie being caught up in this mess, too. It just wouldn't be fair to them; it's not fair to me.

She needs to learn that I won't just blindly cover every lie she spits out. There's a limit.

And so, with that in mind, I look straight into Stella's eyes and say,

"... Bailey lied to you."

*********

Okay, so it's almost 5am so I'm going to keep this short and sweet.

FINALLY, I have finished this chapter! Woo-hoo! 

As some of you may have seen on my message board, I've been suffering with a lot of writer's block these past few weeks – and this chapter has been a s.t.r.u.g.g.l.e (-_-)

I'm still not totally happy with it, so there's a good chance I might go back in and edit it a bit over the next few days, but I want to upload it anyway because it feels like forever since my last update and I hate leaving it so long.

Anyways, like I said, 5am – I need sleep. Because I have work in precisely... 4 hours (sheesh, today is going to suuuck).

Goodnight, guys! Happy reading! I hope this chapter isn't too awful...

P.S. I have family visiting this week so there's a chance I definitely won't have time to write another chapter and upload it for tomorrow's deadline. So I'll aim for Monday and Thursday next week, and try for a double upload week :)