Seventeen year old Safaya Bennett must navigate young adulthood under the stresses of her sins, her crumbling relationship with her twin sister, Rue, and a crippling mental disorder that makes her very dependent on her relationship with Nate Jacobs...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Out of all the people that loved my sister, I loved her the most.
Today was the day that I gave up that title.
It's been eight years since Safaya and I graduated. How I managed to walk the stage still baffles me but it's not like they can take back my diploma now. Throughout Safaya's senior year she had been in a long distance relationship with Maddy, who was attending college across the country in New York City. Even with Maddy being gone, she had such a positive impact on my sister and her sobriety that I will forever be grateful for.
While I struggled with my own sobriety that ebbed and flowed that last year of high school, my sister was flourishing with her support group and system. There were moments that jealousy would hit me, seeing my sister and Maddy be in a healthy relationship together had me think of Jules. We rarely spoke once senior year hit. There were plenty of moments that I wanted to talk to her, see how she was doing following the trial of Cal Jacobs, but I knew that would be my gateway into toxicity. I was not good to Jules because I couldn't be good to myself. My self esteem was non existent and I hated almost everything about me, I couldn't love someone if I didn't love myself. That's impossible and it took me years to properly realize that and build myself back up.
Nate and his family quickly packed up and moved once Nate had graduated. They were well known in the city and that was their curse following Cal's explosive and traumatizing trial. Nate was eerily quiet and didn't attempt to speak with Safaya, to which later we realized why. Many scandalous things came out about Cal and his tendencies, even text messages about how he had an additional appetite for young girls, Jules not being the only one. Since Jules was a minor at the time of the trial her identity was protected as well as the other young girl he was speaking about in explicit messages.
When the East Highland Police came looking for my sister we quickly realized that Cal was preying on her for years, she was the focus of those texts. Exactly why Nate made a point to never leave Saf and his dad by themselves ... he knew exactly the monster that his father is. The trial didn't have a large impact on my sister since she wasn't asked to testify privately. Due to there not being enough evidence of Cal actually attempting to touch her. The courts justified it as speculation but it still helped put him away for a very long time.
Once we graduated, my sister decided to live with Maddy in NYC and I stayed home with my mom and Gia. My sobriety was too fragile for me to be out on my own and I grew to not feel ashamed of that. I got a job at a local hardware store to help give me stability and Saf went to NYU on a photography scholarship. She documented her struggle to sobriety and added it to her portfolio, once she submitted it to the Dean of Admissions things seemed to be going her way and I was really proud of her for that. From lying about her issues for years to finally admitting that she needed help was a big step for her.
With Saf being across the country with her girlfriend, I had expected to hear interesting stories from them all the time when I called weekly. I never expected to hear about them breaking up over a year later, or, how friendly they still were afterwards. They planned to still live together as roommates.
