A Shattered Glass, My Life Without Her

By My Side

It was evening, just shy of nine o'clock. Kat had returned from an evening cast meeting as I heard the door being opened and then locked after she entered.

'Iev, I'm home!' She called out.

'Hi Kat! I'm in my room!' I returned.

I heard her make her way up the stairs, skipping every other tread; one advantage of having long athletic legs.

She popped her head around the door frame. 'Hi Ievs, what are you up to?'

It was so simple her nickname for me, combined with her quirked eyebrow playfully suspecting me of something naughty. But that's all it took to make it endearing, coming from her, my always-hero.

'I'm writing....a few letters and some scribbles.' I never elaborate on my writing. When I was in the zone, I could pump out ten or twenty poems at a time. But I likened them to a jumble of letters more than coherent verses.

Kat looked across my bed at the familiar sheets upon sheets of paper stacked in perfect piles, covered in inky scribbles. She knew better than to pull me from my hyper focus. She knew it was good for me to expel my thoughts onto paper, however they came out. It was a prescription my therapist back home had given to me early on. And after I had left for grad school, the habit followed and grew to be a book of poems, an almost complete dissertation and a series of lectures on words, writing and poetry.

I credit Kat and our parents for helping me heal and to grow to be my currently capable self. But she credits my ability to focus that had given me so many words to be able to express myself. She enters my room and slides down to sit against the closet door, watching my meditative state. She is convinced, in all the words I've written down since I was adopted those many years ago, there is a spell being spun among them and it is the cure to my trauma.

After a few minutes of her observing me, I knew better that she had come in for other reasons than to get a rerun of my drawn out venting process. After all, the last time I saw her earlier today, she was revealing to the top of my wet, moppy head a secret she held about her dear British friend.

I looked up from my paper glancing at her brown eyes watching from across the room. She smiled knowing I was reading her mind. Her eyes were lovingly yet acutely telling my mind to spill the beans.

'Dom'll be here in five minutes. She's only making a run to the market for more ice cream.' She warned and smiled. 'Give me the two-minute version?'

We both smiled a knowing sisterly look that needed no words. Had she not spoken with Dom this entire time they were together? I hedged, 'I'm sure you already know...but if you must heah it from me....long story short, we took a test...and we both passed with flying coluhs.' I explained keeping her curious and prying.

She knew I was holding back intentionally, baiting the time to run out. She glared and then raised an eyebrow and leaned her head to one side. 'Are you kidding me? You're going to play that game?...Didn't I save you from complete and utter embarrassment earlier today? Or at least from being trapped in the bathroom for...forever?' She exaggerated, knowing I would have easily hid in that room for more than a day if not two.

But she was right. She did cover my back, yet again. She was always going to protect me even from myself. Somehow when we first met, even though she had only ever been an only child, she naturally knew how to be a big sister, my keeper.

I walked into the seemingly expansive building. The echo of voices, of hubbub invading my ears. All I could see was the perfectly wavy brown locks with a small blue bow clipped to a few strands of long hair comforting me from a few feet in front. The back of Kat's head was my safe place. She suggested I follow her into the school building and if I should get overwhelmed I should stay focused on one thing. As she led us in, I found her blue bow to focus on. She stopped in the middle of the hallway just outside the office and turned to face me, as I swallowed the lump in my throat. My eyes darted around upon loss of the blue ribbon.