Holly's Angel

Holly had an older sister, ten years older than her but her sister was sick and she was gone when Holly was three. Three was a young age to lose someone. Sometimes it hurt to think of her sister who she remembered loving but could hardly remember.

Her family was wrecked after her sister passed. There were shouting and screaming and broken furniture. There wasn't anyone who would listen to her in this house. No one asked her what was wrong or why she was failing most of her class. No one wondered when she would lock herself inside her room for days. No one asked her why even when her room was messy, her things scattered everywhere, she hadn't an ounce of power in her to pick things up and clean the floor. There were no comforting hugs and kisses and Holly hated being at home, she hated being at school, she hated being. So at thirteen, battling undiagnosed depression, she was lost with no one to turn to and no one to help.

After a particularly hard day, Holly broke down crying, hiding herself in her sister's room, a room that no one had really gone into since her sister passed. She sat behind the door, crying quietly for so long that her eyes felt heavy and she fell asleep. In her dream, she met her sister again. She was three and running around trying not to be caught by her sister in a game. Her sister was frail and tired, but happy. Another scene, she was sitting on her sister's bed, on the side without the IV drip, her sister loudly reading a children's book. In her peripherals, she could see her parents arguing, shouting, a much too familiar scene. Her sister, realizing where Holly was looking, touched her cheek, kissed her head and kept reading, louder this time.

Another scene, it was dark. Holly was in her three year old body. She knew she wasn't supposed to be in her sister's hospice room, but their parents were arguing again.

"Hey, Holly," her sister whispered. Holly saw her sister, smiling at her, always smiling at her. "Come sit," she said, patting the empty space beside her on the bed. Holly quickly climbed up. "They're fighting," Holly said, whispering too. Her chin was wobbling. She didn't like it when her parents fought, it was loud and upsetting. "Yeah, adults do that sometimes. It's stupid huh? They're so close, like this," her sister said, moving her face a little bit closer to Holly's, "but they just keep shouting. We kids are smarter than they are, aren't we?"

Holly nodded but slowly, she was unsure.

"They," Holly said, "they said you're gonna die." At three, Holly didn't really understand what it meant to die. But it was implied many times that her sister would leave her and never return, and she wouldn't want that at all. So Holly's chin started to wobble again and she started to cry.

"Holly," her sister said, her voice teasing, "you're such a big girl already. Why are you crying? Everyone dies." Which did not really help because it only made Holly cry harder.

"Hey, big, big girl," her sister said, tugging at her hair. She liked to do that, she said it was a gesture of good luck so that her own hair would come back. Holly looked up to her sister. "I'll be gone for a little bit," her sister confessed, "but we're going see each other again some day, so think of it like I'm going on a trip, yeah? Avery long trip."

Holly gripped her sister's hospital robes. "But I don't want you to go," Holly said. Her voice was desperate and she started to sob again. Her sister, she didn't realize at the time, was also in tears herself. "Okay, tell you what," she said, taking out her hand in front of her dramatically. She pointed out her pinkie and curled her other fingers. "Let's make an unbreakable promise," her sister said, so seriously, so out of character, that Holly looked up from her sobs.

"Let's promise, that we'll always be with each other. Forever," her sister said, "and it's gonna be like Bettlejuice right? When I die and you say my name three times, I'll come to you." Holly was astonished. How could such a thing happen? "Like a ghost?" She asked, curiously. Her sister smiled, she seemed to have successfully lifted Holly away from sad thoughts, for now. "Maybe... but maybe we don't have ghost powers and you can't see me! That's okay too. You'll just have to remember that we promised this and trust that I'll be there. You trust me, don't you, Holly?" Her sister was very dramatic. She perhaps could have performed in a theater, or become a TV presenter. She sounded so offended when she asked if Holly would trust her. "'Course I trust you," Holly replied, with a huff.