Night had fallen and Kelly was all alone in the living room of her suburban home.
Sagging against one arm of the couch, the nineteen year old had her eyes on the television screen but was actually paying very little attention to the sitcom that was running. There was something preying on her mind right now, something that was far more important.
To her dismay, it was beginning to look like she had seriously screwed up her relationship with her little sister by having sex with her that morning.
How else to explain the fact that Lori had been avoiding her all day? Or, that she hadn't been able to meet her eyes since their misadventure in the bathroom? It was so bad between them, in fact, that right now, with the siblings all alone in the house as their mother was out on a date, the younger woman was hiding in her bedroom behind a closed door.
It was all her fault, too. It was she who had started all of the trouble, after all.
The sound of a door opening caught her attention and she sat up quickly, listening to the light footfalls padding their way along the hallway. Her sister had finally emerged from her room!
Walking around the corner, Lori stopped dead in her tracks at the sight of her big sister sitting there, looking down. It broke Kelly's heart to see how uncomfortable Lori was in her presence now and her instinctive reaction was to find some way to fix this, but she would not be given the chance to apologize.
Raising her eyes again, eighteen year old Lori softly wondered, "What are you watching?"
"What?" Television was not what was on Kelly's mind right now and so the question confused her for a moment, and then she had to look at the screen to see what was on. "Oh, it's 'The Big Bang Theory Of How I Met Your Mother.'"
"Cool. That's a pretty good show."
Lori started moving again then, coming the rest of the way into the living room and sitting down. She might have been willing to join her sister on the couch, but it hurt Kelly so much to see that she chose to sit as far away from her as she possibly could, leaning against the opposite arm.
"Look, I'm really, really sorry about what happened this morning!"
The younger teen seemed surprised by her sister's sudden outburst. "You are? How come? I mean, I thought it was pretty incredible!"
Kelly was startled. Her sister really didn't have any problem with their incestuous encounter? "You liked it?"
"Of course, silly. If you'll recall, I didn't do any complaining at the time! For that matter, until mom showed up and almost caught us red-handed, I was even prepared to go jump into bed with you! What on earth would give you the stupid idea that I was upset over our little toilet romp?"
"You have been avoiding me all day, Lori."
The younger woman blinked. "What? I haven't been avoiding . . .? Oh, wait a moment! I get it now! You thought that because I've been in my room so much today." Lori laughed a little. "I'm sorry about that, Kelly. The truth is that I did that because of my own hang ups, not because of you or because I regretted what we did."
Kelly let out a huge sigh of relief, feeling like a huge weight had been lifted from her shoulders by this revelation. "What hang ups?"
Lori's cheeks flushed warmly and she looked away again. "Having mom practically catch us in the act like that just kind of weirded me out. I mean, can you imagine what would have happen if she ever found out that her daughters were fooling around? I have a feeling that it wouldn't be pretty!"
"So you weren't hiding from me," the other girl ventured, "but you were hiding from mom?"
"Sort of, I guess."
After all of the worrying she'd done, Kelly needed one final reassurance. "So, we're cool then?"
Lori smiled warmly. "We're cool."
This was a warm and fuzzy moment for both of them and the two teenagers spent a little time just enjoying it, each of them reaching out to take hold of a hand and give it a squeeze. They were doing nothing less than reconnecting and, though no words were spoken, none were needed either.
Then, with a smile on her face big enough to light up the whole room, Lori shifted so that she could stretch out on the couch, her head coming to rest on her big sister's lap.
Kelly was a bit surprised by this move, but was also obviously quite pleased. She had such a huge smile on her face now that it was starting to make her cheeks hurt and could not have resisted the impulse to stroke the other girl's hair even if she'd tried.