1.1 | Lost & Found

vi. sister

I N D I G O

I am suffocating on my own emotions. All my emotions are wrapped tightly in a small lump in the back of my throat, almost preventing me from speaking. I have focused on feeling numb for years. My mind has helped me. I had mastered the art of burying my emotions off deep six feet under a long time ago. That's what many people might tell you. bury your emotions, cry a river, build a bridge and move on.

But they forget to tell you that when you dig deep, you might just find decaying corpses of emotions you left behind, dead souls of the memories you forgot on the way ahead.

I've always known the truth is hard to give, but what happens when it's too hard to face? What if that trust is never recovered? Depression is like being colorblind but constantly told by others that the world is colorful. Have they never wondered how bleak it looks when it's viewed through a monotone spectrum?

No.

And therefore they'll never know.

Ezra looked straight ahead as he drove, past the white beam of our headlights, deep into the night, like he could see exactly what was up ahead of us. I couldn't see anything, though: not a house, not a store, not even an old barking dog. A big fat moon, pale white and lonesome-looking, was our only streetlight. I watched the way the moonlight painted his profile: the dark shadows under his cheekbones, the tight pull of his mouth.

I've always loved the things the world has left behind. Stranded pieces of driftwood on the beach, all lone by the side of the beach. I love to collect pieces of broken flower petals. At the same time, withered flowers scare me. They oddly remind me of myself. When Mom and I visited the beach, I used to collect all the broken pieces of driftwood, vintage bottle caps stranded amongst coarse, ivory sand, and all the lost treasures from the depths of the sea washed up upon the shore. Mom used to jokingly say I was the Keeper of the Lost.

And probably the most painful thing is that somewhere along the way, I became one of the lost, one of the abandoned discarded things that the world forgot about, and never realized it.

I was lost in my thoughts, so lost that I didn't realize the car had entered a small town.

It was a quiet small town, with modern structures that had a tinge of ancient architecture. There were cobble-stones roads and patches of unruly farmland, wild and untamed. The windows of the small cottage-themed houses standalone houses were adorned with wildflowers that fought each other for rays of delirious undappled sunlight that filtered down. We passed a school, a town hall, the gym, a retro arcade, and two diners. There was a book store and a shopping center that we passed too.

Harlan Cove sits above sea level, so if you walk westward on any street in town, you'll eventually hit the bluffs. Some of them drop off right above the ocean, and others taper downhill toward the shore. I think I imagined the coast with surfers running headlong into the waves and with pops of colourful umbrellas. But it's quieter, just the whoosh of water and call of birds. The natural world makes the finest architects and designers and artists look like amateurs. 

I've always wanted to live in towns like these.

Small ones in which people minded their own business and helped each other instead of tearing them down or discussing the latest scandals.

My life in the city was nothing like this: It was all about survival and trying to make it to the mountain top without taking a fall. Everything was about competition, there was no love, friends gave each other curt nods and cold smiles instead of the warm hugs and merry cheers.

Ezra stopped the car in front of one of the standalone houses with a wild garden and a large front porch. We helped me out of the car, much to my embarrassment, and chuckled as my cheeks heated when he held my hand.

I stepped out timidly, glad that I had Ezra's hand to hold onto.

In the short time that I had met my oldest brother, he had managed to take a small place in my heart, thawing its solid, frozen walls little by little.

It scared me.

But at the same time, a small traitorous part of my soul felt loved.

We walked up the front of the steps but before Ezra could knock on the door, it was flung open by a rather disheveled boy whose face was in what felt like a permanent scowl. His dark hair was disheveled and fell down to his eyes. He looked at me and his scowl deepened.

"Blake," Ezra acknowledged.

My mind pulled me back in. I couldn't help but think how all the kids at school would look at me the same way. Smiling at me, just to hide a scowl when I got the perfect grades. Hugging me, just to get close enough to whisper something in my ear that would make me cry. Volunteering to clean the lockers just so that they could practice their 'graffiti skills' on mine.

Shut up, Indigo, this is your brother.

Before Blake could begin with what he wanted to say, a blurry figure barrelled towards the door and flung Blake out of the way. Blake stumbled and was pushed against the wall. He let out a steady stream of curses that made Ezra get madder and consistently redder in the face. He covered my ears while Blake cursed.

He doesn't know that I've actually had those words directed at me before.

By my own mother.

"Oh my god, it's actually her!"

Before I could protest, I was pulled into a bear hug.

The kind of bear hug that made your heart feel like it was melting chocolate, given so much love and safety, that it was melting into goo. The bearer of the hug looked like a more colorful eccentric version of Blake, so from what Ezra said, I assumed it was his twin: Dakota.

I was too scared to reciprocate the hug so I awkwardly patted his back.

Sometimes I hate the fact that I am so socially useless.

"Leave the poor girl alone, you're depriving the flow of oxygen entering her."

A tall blonde girl enters the living room. She is dressed in a knitted cropped sweater and black leggings. She looks exactly like mom used to before alcohol became her first priority. She has mom's sparkling blue eyes, not the kind you wanted to drown in, but the kind that remind you of summer blue skies and happy daydreams. She is tall and lithe like mom, with the graceful walk of a dancer. Dakota let go of me, but the grin never left his face. So this is my older sister. This beautiful human is my sister.

My sister.

The word feels foreign in my mouth.

Olivia wraps me in a gentle hug.

She smells of Christmas cookies and cinnamon and safety.

They say broken girls like me blossom into warriors. I've never understood it. Because scars stay. And I'm not talking about the temporary scrapes you get when you fall. I'm talking about the permanent scars carved into your heart by the ones you love.

I catch Ezra giving me a sad look from across the hall as I look over Olivia's shoulder while she is still hugging me.

For the millionth time in the same day, I wonder if he can see how broken I am or if the shattered pieces of my heart are only visible to me.

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