Run To You

chained the door behind her. A light in the stove lit up a small part of the tiny kitchen. She paid eight hundred dollars a month for the six-hundred-square-foot apartment. Sparse IKEA furniture filled the space. A couch, two chairs, coffee table, and bedroom set. That was about it. She moved a lot and it made sense not to have a lot of possessions.
    Stella walked into the kitchen and set her backpack on the counter. She grabbed a bottle of water and moved through the darkness to her bedroom. Exhaustion weighted her shoulders even as her mind raced. She flipped on the light and pulled a tank top out of a six-drawer oak dresser.
    On a normal night, she might decompress in front of the television. Tonight it would take more than old reruns and infomercials. She unlaced and stepped out of her boots, then her bustier, leather shorts, and lace thong hit the bedroom floor. She moved into the bathroom, jumped in the shower, and washed the smell of Ricky’s from her hair. As the water poured over the crown of her head, she let herself think of what it might be like to meet her sister. If it was true, and Sadie hadn’t known about Stella, maybe they should meet. It couldn’t hurt. Except . . .
    Sadie was so successful. She’d gone to UT Austin and UC Berkeley and was a real estate agent in Phoenix. A top seller, or at least she had been before her father’s death. Now she owned the JH Ranch and had a fiancé who loved her enough to hire G.I. Joe to track Stella down.
    She turned off the water and wrapped her hair in a fluffy blue towel. Okay, so she might have occasionally plugged her sister’s name into a search engine on the Internet. She might have kept up on her from time to time. When she’d been a kid, she might have read about Sadie in the Amarillo Globe , and she might have harbored a few vague fantasies about a sister reunion. Where they fell on each other’s necks and wept for joy. Maybe they wore matching sister lockets and painted their fingernails pink because red was for fast girls. Perhaps they’d call and write and spend holidays with each other.
    But that reunion never happened and she’d given up on those fantasies a long time ago. Fantasies were foolish and cost a big emotional price.
    A second blue towel hung on the rack and she grabbed it. She dried herself and brushed her long wet hair. Sadie was five years older than Stella. Sadie was golden and successful, and Stella . . .
    Wasn’t.
    She pulled on a pair of pink panties and a tank top. Sadie’s mother had been a beauty queen from a respected family. Stella’s mother had been a nanny from a long line of undocumented workers. One time when Stella had been about ten, she’d thought it would be funny to run into her mother’s house and yell, “ La Migra! La Migra! La Migra! ” She’d never seen her stepfather or uncles move so fast. Especially Jorge, who’d bailed out the window. When everyone realized the border patrol wasn’t really coming, she’d gotten in big trouble. In retrospect, she understood that maybe it wasn’t the best of jokes.
    She crawled into bed and nestled into her feather pillows. Even as a kid, no one thought she was as hysterical as she did. G.I. Joe hadn’t thought she was funny. If she ever did meet Sadie, her sister probably wouldn’t think she was funny, either. Or maybe, just maybe, her sister would share her sense of humor. It had to come from somewhere.
    Stella turned on the television across the room. She found a Two and a Half Men rerun with Charlie Sheen before his “winning” and “tiger’s blood” antics. She was positive she wouldn’t fall asleep for a long time and was surprised when she opened her eyes later and sunlight spilled into her bedroom. On the tube, Jerry Springer acted like he gave a damn about the two women beating the crap out of each other over some redneck. She turned off the television and looked at the clock. It was a little after nine A.M. She had slept for only five hours, and she turned on her back and tried to go back to sleep. Her eyes drifted closed but flew back open as someone pounded on her door.
    She lay still. Maybe it wasn’t her door. Bam, bam, bam . Yep, it was her door, but it couldn’t be the property manager. She’d paid her rent on time. If she didn’t answer, the person would go away. She closed her eyes, but the pounding continued.
    “Crap.” She sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed. It was probably Malika, her friend from work, and