✅ My Sister's Problem

60. Start of the Journey

This chapter is dedicated to my first follower on Patreon, twilight. Thank you!

Mum was starting the engine already as Lindy closed the car door and fastened her belt. Lindy was in the front of the car as always, because of her motion sickness, while I was sitting behind Mum. The satnav thing lit up right away, with a message warning not to use it while driving. Mum tapped a few buttons beside the screen and brought up a list of bluetooth devices. I was just a little surprised when she chose my phone from the list. I would get to choose our music for the trip, a rare honour.

My usual taste in music was too cheesy for today; and I was sure that Lindy would start throwing a tantrum if I put it on. I didn't really want music at all, I wanted to scream at my sister. Or to be alone with my thoughts. But we were on the road to the beach house. This was our family time, this was special. It would be packed with memories, like the spot where Dad had scratched our initials into a cliff, or the place he always stood to howl at the moon. Happy memories. And sad memories too, like stepping outside the caves and getting an immediate flood of text messages from the doctor, talking about progression to stage 4 and a whole host of options that he knew would prove futile. But memories, not a time for childish feuds.

"Why does she get to choose?" Lindy snapped, reaching over to the console. "Babies should listen to– Hey!"

Mum had slapped her hand, and she stared in surprise for a second.

"Linda. I saw the smirk you gave your sister when you got in the car, and I am certain you knew exactly what you were doing. I should have punished you right away, but I didn't want to start this trip in a negative mood. So I'll let you choose: you can be grateful to your sister, who has gone out of her way to solve your problems for you. Or I can treat you as the toddler you're acting like. I can pull over as soon as we reach the Balderton rest stop, spank you over my knee, and put you back in diapers for the rest of the year. Do you understand me?"

Lindy went pale, and stared at Mum with her eyes wide. The Balderton rest area was the first stop along the highway, just a few minutes from home. And it was overlooked by a park where a couple of Lindy's friends liked to hang out on weekends. She'd spent some time sitting between the trees there, looking down at travellers and inventing fanciful tales about who might be a spy, or where all these people were coming from or going to. It was the nuclear option of punishments, a risk that Lindy would never be willing to take. The silence stretched out then, and I felt that this was all my fault. Not directly, but because I had started all the stupid games that had made Lindy so angry, and pushed her to do the unthinkable. Was this somehow my fault? In any case, I needed to fix it.

I started some music. Out of the recommendations on my phone, the first one I wanted to hear in my current mood was Something in the Way. After that I queued up The Sound of Silence, and Welcome to the Black Parade. A pretty eclectic selection, but I figured that would help get all the bad vibes out of my system, and I could put on something a little more bouncy next.

"Aww, why do we have to listen to–"

"Linda!" Mum cut in. I didn't expect that; complaining about each other's music was almost an annual sport for us, which was why Mum had chosen what to listen to on the trip last year. I hadn't expected to be given the choice again. It was a nice surprise, but it didn't take my mind off why she was trying to make me feel better. I had to raise the mood, I couldn't bring the whole holiday down. But had I really done anything to justify Lindy going that far?

"It's okay," I said, after taking a deep breath in the hope my voice would sound almost stable. "Is there something you'd like better?"

"This isn't too bad," Mum answered. "A bit grim, but it works for me. And Linda, you should read your text messages before you say anything else. You have one from Harper" – she paused and turned her head briefly to glare at Lindy, who closed her mouth again without interrupting – "and one from Coleen. They say approximately the same thing, I believe it's a message that your new friend wanted to get out to everyone she knows."

Lindy went quiet for a moment, reluctantly reading what had been sent to her. It gave me a little more time to think as well. I still felt bad; I'd made my little sister wet the bed a couple of times, after I'd been so cruel about it last time. But I hadn't teased her. I hadn't said anything mean. I'd acted like I didn't know, and Mum had been nothing but supportive. She had a right to be angry, sure, but she didn't even know I was responsible. Maybe to her it would have seemed like she could feel less humiliated by doing the same thing to me, and I could support that. I didn't even mind, if it made her feel better. All the times she'd tried to humiliate me, to get Mum to spank me, and forced me to go out in diapers, I didn't object to. It was just a game, friendly rivalry between sisters, and a contest I would happily concede until she was happy again.

That was when I realised. All the times she'd been embarrassed since the first few wet nights had been her own fault. She kept suffering the consequences of her revenge, and deciding to take it out on me again in a massive, one-sided arms race. She'd done everything in her power to humiliate me, and shown no remorse at all. And I couldn't hate her for it, because she'd made me feel small. And somehow, after that first dream, that was exactly what I was curious about. I told myself that she'd just overreacted; and that I couldn't blame her. I told myself that even if it was unfair for her to just lash out at the person closest, I could put up with it because the thing stressing her had been my fault in the first place.

But humiliating me in front of Hugo? Where was the sense in that?

She thought she'd lost a chance with her crush because of me. Because she thought Harper had seen my diapers and told everyone. But that didn't make sense. The diapers in the car had been there only because Lindy had insisted Mum should bring some so that she could humiliate me again if necessary. If Harper had even seen them, she would have been seeing something that Lindy put there, which couldn't possibly be my fault. She was literally trying to punish me for her own attempt to humiliate me. And her guess had been completely off the mark in any case, as she already knew. This wasn't revenge anymore. This was malice, pure and simple. And there was no way that it was justified by anything I had done to her.

I told myself that if she apologised, I would try to forgive her. Now that she knew that Niall didn't hate her, and that she might still have a chance with the girl. I could only hope that she would realise what she'd done, and what it could mean to me. If she didn't say she was sorry, I didn't know what I would do. Perhaps Mum was wrong after all, and retribution could be the only way to make her stop.

The music came to a halt. We'd just listened to everything I had queued up, finishing with Mmmbop which I hoped would lighten the mood a little after some depressing tracks. I thought about adding more, but hesitated. If I wanted my sister to talk to me, I needed to make it easy for her to talk. And insanely catchy tunes didn't do that.

"Did we run out of music?" Mum asked. She tried to make it sound like a joke, but I could tell she was still concerned.

"No, I just... I know Lindy doesn't like my music. Would it be better if we chat for a bit, maybe?"

"That's a great idea. I'm sure Lindy's got things she'd like to say. Oh, but if you want something besides highway noise in the background, there's a new thing in the family app library called Noisify. You can have like a coffee shop, or a crowded bazaar, or eagles and yodelling goatherds. Background sounds."

I quickly took a look, and found the app she meant. It looked pretty, and had a huge selection of background sounds for all kinds of situations. I picked one called 'day at the races', and smiled as it seemed to change the whole atmosphere of the car.

Nobody spoke for a while, and I wondered how I was supposed to make Lindy realise that she'd done something I couldn't cope with. But Mum broke the silence by asking to place a bet on an imaginary horse; like we really were at the racetrack. Lindy giggled, and a second later I did too. Then Mum was cheering her horse on, and Lindy quickly joined in as a commentator calling out each fence passed, the lead changing every couple of seconds. The next race, I joined in too. We weren't saying anything, we were pretending to be characters and filling up the scenario that all this audio was conjuring. But we were talking again, and that could only be a step towards being friends.

The races didn't keep us entertained for long. But after that we went on to a busy coffee shop where all the voices in the background seemed to be in Arabic. So I decided we were in Cairo, and started a discussion about which was the best out of all the historic tourist attractions we had seen so far. Lindy, apparently, thought that the alien spaceship was way more interesting than any bunch of rocks. And by the time the noise thing changed over to another scene, we were laughing again. I could almost forget what she had done to me this morning.