Company from out of town. Could mean trouble.

Christina’s phone buzzed in her pocket. Pulling it out, she looked at the screen: unknown caller. Pressing the side button – silencing the call and sending it to voicemail – she shoved it back into her jeans. Momemts later, it buzzed again, and again, she pulled it out and looked at the screen: unknown caller.

“Hello?” She said into the microphone.

“Christina? Hi! It’s Maria!”

Oh, god. Christina thought, fighting the blossoming urge to hang up the phone before the voice could infect her brain and play on her emotions. Like Saruman, she couldn’t help but laugh to herself. “Oh, Maria, hi! What’s going on?” She said instead, chastizing herself for acting as if this were a perfectly normal, healthy sibling relationship.

“I just got to town!” Maria cheered. “Are you busy? What’s your address?”

“Wh-what do you mean?” Shocked disbelief stumbling her feet and the words in her throat. “You’re here?”

15 minutes later and still in a suffocating fog, Christina was standing at the door to her apartment building waiting for her sister and growing frustrated. She said she’d be here 5 minutes ago. 

Another five minutes passed, and Christina’s dread finally peaked at the sight of a beaten up, mismatched sedan fuming exhaustedly up to the curb. The window rolled down and Maria, the sister she hadn’t seen or heard from in fives years, stuck her head out.

“Sis!!” Maria cried excitedly before jumping out of the car and leaving the window down. She ran the short distance down the sidewalk and threw her arms around Christina. “It’s so good to see you!”

Christina arms hung limply at her sides; she didn’t know what to think, to say, to do. Eventually, for fear of being rude, she returned the embrace. “It’s good to see you, too,” she managed, even though she hardly recognized the woman before her, who seemed to have aged impossibly since their last parting.

Releasing Christina, Maria snatched the keys from her sister’s hand and fobbed open the apartment door. “Which one is yours??” She called behind her, searching for the elevator.