Distractions

She Was Just a Kid

I swear to you, @ink_and_fables_4_u wants us all to cry. Their prompt was literally just 'Sister fight...angst, lots of it' and I don't know why I was surprised. 

That being said, this entire drabble (even with it being as short as it is) is angst and anger and full of mentions of things like neglect, threats, and implied self-harm. Please, please, please do not read this drabble if any of the above would trigger you. I will put a notice around the part that implies self-harm, but this entire drabble is potentially triggering. Please, and I cannot stress this enough, please do not read this part if you could be triggered by it. I want everyone to be safe, so don't feel obligated to read this part.

"You don't get it, do you?" She scoffed. "Of course you don't. You're the favorite, so how could you get it?"

"What don't I get? Huh? What don't I get, Everest?" Clary snapped. Her voice was sharp and words like needles as they threatened to dig into Everest's skin.

"You're the favorite, always have been. Mom's favorite, Luke's favorite, the school's favorite. You're Valentine's favorite, you were even the favorite Fray when we went to the same school! You've never had to deal with the shitty backlash that I have, because you're the favorite!"

"What are you on about?"

"While you were prancing around with your art skills and happy go lucky social life, I was trying to keep myself from falling into a pit of misery I couldn't crawl out of. I only just crawled out of the one I fell into as it was! You were so busy trying to maintain a social life that you completely forgot that I existed, that there were problems we needed to solve outside of school! And it only got worse when I transferred schools!"

Clary huffed in disbelief. "I was not ignoring you to be popular! And there was nothing that we needed to deal with outside of school! We were fourteen."

Everest's face was hot with anger and her nails dug into her palms as she refrained from doing something she would regret later. How dare Clary say that. How dare she assume that everything was fine when they were fourteen. Had she forgotten the days Everest had spent out of the house or in bed, unable to face the world? How Everest had been admitted to the hospital because she had gotten so stressed out and was taking so little care of herself that she collapsed in the street? How did she think that any of that was fine?

Trigger warning: Implied self-harm!!

"Do you not remember the days that I was in the hospital? Or when I was unable to get out of bed, or unable to go home?" Everest's voice was slightly softer now, the disbelief and anger flooding her words twisting into calm bitterness. "What about the day you found me lying on the bathroom floor, unconscious because I had gotten dizzy from blood loss and you had to help bandage my torso? Do you remember that?"

Clary flinched, her pale, freckled skin turning ashy at the memories. "What about it?"

"That was when we were fourteen." Everest waited for her sister to say something, anything. She didn't. "Think about that and then tell me that we didn't have problems outside of school."

"What the hell was even with you back then?" Clary demanded, voice full of venom. "Were you sad because your boyfriend left?"

"He wasn't my boyfriend, he was my brother!" Everest snarled. Her calm bitterness had twisted into loud anger again. "He was threatened with my life, he had to leave!"

"Then why did you do that shit to yourself if you knew why he left?"

"I didn't know why he left back then! Besides, not everyone is Ms. Perfect Angel Clary. Not everyone deals with things in the healthiest ways."

"You didn't have to almost die!" Clary shouted, emerald eyes bright with the tears that welled up without warning. "You didn't have to just decide you didn't care anymore! You could have said something!"

Implied self-harm trigger warning over!!

"No I really couldn't have. Not with you being so concerned for your popularity that you forgot I existed."

Tears ran down Clary's face as she glared. Everest wasn't sure why she was crying. Everest was the one who almost died, who was forgotten and left to fend for herself at one of the worst points in her life. Why was Clary crying?

"I'm sorry, Everest," Clary whispered, all the anger draining from her stance in the same instant that Everest's stance filled with harshness. "I'm so sorry that wasn't there for you."

"Sorry doesn't fix the past."

"I know but—"

"No. No buts. What's done is done and you can't change what's done."

Everest turned away from the redhead, fists still clenched and now slick with sweat from clenching her fists so long. She kept her head high and expression neutral as she started to leave the cluttered room her sister called home.

"Please, Everest, I'm sorry. I didn't mean for any of that, I didn't mean to ignore you or make you feel like you did. Please, let me try to make it up to you."

Everest paused in the doorway, but didn't look back. "There is nothing that you can do that could possibly make up for what happened when we were fourteen."

"I'm so sorry."

"I'm sure you are."

Everest had to pause halfway down the hall to steady her shaking legs. As she leaned against the wall, she heard a faint whisper from her sister's room.

"She was just a kid. Oh, God. She was just a kid. Why was I so mean?"

"Yeah, I was just a kid. So were you," Everest muttered. Then she walked away, broken sobs echoing behind her, drowning out her own heavy breathing. She walked away and didn't look back.