As I stood outside my parents’ house, waiting after I rang the doorbell, I smiled to myself as I thought about my plan for the Summer. It was the last day of exam period at university, and it had been a long few months – I was entirely ready to waste away in my room, become nocturnal, and play video games with my friends every waking hour.

But then the door opened. “Hey, Luke.” Charley said.

Hang on. Charley? When my stepmum had told me there would be a surprise waiting for me when I got home from my final exam today, I was expecting something like her neighborhood-renowned kimchi stew, although I had secretly hoped that she and my dad had caved and bought me the 4k monitor I’d been begging them for for months. What I hadn’t expected was that my stepsister would be back from Stanford.

It made sense, of course – I knew that she had been in her last year, so she would have graduated recently. But with how much she seemed to prefer it over there, and the fact that she was a US citizen anyway, I had kind of expected her to just … stay. I’m assuming that she preferred it anyway, because it’s not like she had ever said it outright. Or said anything much at all.

That was how it had been ever since she left – I would only see her during the yearly two-week long trip back to London, we’d have a few conversations consisting entirely of small talk and her amazing life in San Francisco, and then back she’d go - with birthday messages being pretty much our only other form of contact throughout the year.

But whatever. She was probably just here for a week or two before she started some ridiculously high paid job in New York or LA. Nothing to worry about.

“Oh. You’re back,” I replied.

“I’m back,” she agreed.

“I guess you’re the surprise mum told me about.”

She smiled. “Lucky you.”

She looked just like she had when I’d seen her last year, when she’d come for summer break. The only difference in her appearance was her hair: she’d dyed it light blonde, and unfortunately it looked really, really good on her.

“I was kind of hoping for a gaming monitor,” I said.

She frowned. “And don’t you see that I’m so much better?”

“Hmm. You have a 144 hertz refresh rate?” I brushed past her to make my way up to my room. After a grueling two-hour exam on constitutional law, I was ready to kick back and play Elden Ring for the rest of the day.

“Hey, wait!” she called up as I trudged up the stairs. “I just got back earlier today, and was hoping you could help me unpack … Mum and Dad are still at work.”

I stopped in my tracks. “Unpack?” She never normally unpacked, it wasn’t worth the effort. My heart started beating faster. “You’re … you’re not flying back soon?”

“I’m not flying back, period,” she replied. “Well, maybe to visit. But I’m staying in London – I’m starting at JP Morgan in September. You didn’t know?”

I don’t know how she thought I would have stumbled upon this information, given that the only message she’d sent me in the last few months was a gif of a cat jumping out of a birthday cake. “No … I didn’t.” I swallowed. This was not good news.

“Huh, two surprises in one.” She skipped up the stairs after me, and grinned. “You really are lucky.”

‘Lucky’ wasn’t the word I’d use to describe how I was feeling at that moment. But I closed my eyes and tried to block it out. Get over yourself, man – you’re not a child, and she’s family. “Fine. Let’s unpack.”

“Yay. Fun. I already started, so it shouldn’t take too long.”