Wildflowers

Chapter 11- Growing up might feel like breaking at first.

Alexandra July 4th

I was laying on my back, staring at the sky in my grandmother's back garden.
The sun was almost blinding me, but the shade provided by the tree nearby was a help.

I lay there, a forearm covering my eyes, my other hand holding my phone to my ear. Discreet greeting and words shared between us.

"Are you coming over this summer? I haven't seen you in a while" she spoke.

I felt this weird cramp inside me, I never knew how to talk about it. How to confess?

It's time to, it's finally time, been for a while. I have been waiting to have courage for this, I now do.

"You think?" I ask, after a moment, not letting her start questioning me, I say, "We should talk about it."

"Talk about what?" her voice hardens, it always does as she gets defensive.

"Our relationship. What is going on? What is it? Is there even something?"

"Alexandra, what are you going on about?" She always throws it back at me.

"We were never close when we were younger, think about it, Stacey. When we drifted apart, it hurt, I missed you nevertheless. Especially when I got to see you again, I missed you after you left. The distance made me realize how much I actually cared about you." I say, what I have been wanting to say, what I have been knowing.

Digging in the past I'm trying so hard to forget.

She stays quiet, I continue. "Over the past years, when I have visited..." I stop not knowing how to finish my sentence.

" You know I care about you, right? " My older sister's voice is serious, but vulnerable. I can feel she doesn't want to talk about this.

" When we were kids, you never showed me you did. Okay, sometimes. I didn't understand you then -"

"I was struggling. I never told you, but I was struggling" She says.

"I know. I know you did, Stacey" I saw scars on her wrist then, I see them now when I visit her.

But she's better now, they have long gone healed. White tiger-stripes, warrior.

Battle scars proving that she survived.

"I didn't know what was going on with you. I don't exactly know now, I don't expect you to tell me either" I say.

I know she wants to get out of this conversation, but we need to have it, at one point or another.

I want it now, now is the time. "But I now realise that you were struggling, I can imange what you were going through. Believe it or not, I do -"

"I doubt it" she cuts me off. Almost a decade older, but still a child, still more immature than me. As impatient as always, I get this from her.

I can be the very patient when needed.

I don't respond to her opinion, but go on, "I know what it's like to struggle with mental health, I never told you -"

"Can we not talk about it?" Stacey interrupts me again.

"Hear me out, please" I say, "I understand you what it's like. I don't and will never know all that you ever went through, but I know what it's like to be an older sister. And struggle with it and with myself"

"Whatever that means"

"Over the past years when we have visited, I feel like, every time we are more strangers, more drifted apart" I confess.