My Three Cousins

Chapter Twelve

I hated myself for actually going to Helen's room but there was a part of me that was still that ten-year-old girl trailing after her cousins.  In an effort to seem more assertive, I didn't bother knocking but Helen just looked up from painting her nails with a smile.  "You can sit here," she said gesturing to the bed but when I looked unsure, she pointed to a fluffy chair a few feet away from her.

The room had stayed mostly unchanged throughout the summers.  She still had the same white furniture and pink accents of her childhood.  She had added a string of twinkle lights near the ceiling and the posters that used to be young teens in boy bands were now men almost double our ages.

"What did you need?"  I asked, reluctantly taking a seat on the edge of the chair.  I wanted to make it clear that I didn't want to be here, and this wasn't a social call.  I also wanted to make sure I was prepared to run if she moved toward me.

"I just wanted to talk to you," she sounded hurt and now that I really looked at her, I could tell she had been crying, "I know you're mad at me, but I want to apologize.  It wouldn't have been my idea to use my..." she paused then whispered "power" before returning her voice to normal "on you but Joan and Ruth thought it would help."

"You can't just blame them, you're nineteen."

"Please, Addy.  We've always been close, and I don't want us not to be."  She seemed so sad as she talked, and I could feel myself wanting to forgive her.  I had always worshipped all three of my cousins but with Helen being just a little older than me she was the one I had been closest to.  It was especially hard ignoring her pleas for closeness in her bedroom where we used to play barbies and have sleepovers.  However, there was a part of me that wondered if all those years of wanting to be like Helen was just her using her power to manipulate me.

"We stopped being close years ago," I could hear my own hurt creeping into my voice, "you didn't want to be close to me when I followed you around these past few summers and you literally closed the door in my face."

Helen's face turned red with embarrassment, "I couldn't, I mean, we couldn't." 

I rolled my eyes, not wanting to hear another excuse.  "No, really," she begged, "it was hard to be close to you and not tell you.  Mom wouldn't let us, and I felt bad lying to you all the time.  Joan and Ruth did too."

I looked at her skeptically, "Joan felt bad about something?"

"Ok, well Ruth did," Helen laughed then she turned more serious, "and I did too.  I wanted to tell you when mom died but the funeral was so hard that I didn't feel like I could say anything and then I wanted to tell you again right when you got here.  I was going to convince you to walk off with me that first day, but I knew Ruth was watching me that's why I just touched your hair."  I remembered her touching my braid and complimenting its redness when I walked in.

Anger flashed through me as I realized she meant she was going to use her power on me.  She saw it and tried to backtrack, "I know that wouldn't have been the right thing to do but I didn't know what to do." She was crying now, and I could tell that even though I didn't want to trust her this girl crying to me was the Helen I used to play with in the yard and who shared her karaoke machine with me.  For the first time in years, I felt like I was talking to the cousin I had always known.

"I love my sisters, Addison.  I don't know what I would do without them but sometimes I feel like they don't like me much at all.  I feel like they don't even know me.  You don't what it's like Ruth and Joan are perfect, they do everything exactly like they're supposed to, and I am just supposed to do what they say.  Everywhere I go I'm just their ditzy kid sister following around and being watched."  I couldn't tell if this speech was really meant for me anymore or if she was saying it because she needed to.  "You don't know what it's like being the screw up."

"You're not a screw up," I said, meaning it, "everyone likes you, Helen."

"Men like me," she corrected, "because I'm pretty and seem naive and they think they can trick me into getting into bed with them."  When she said this statement, her shoulders slumped and an air of exhaustion came over her features.

I knew what she was saying was true, but I corrected her anyway, "I like you Helen... I was always wanted to be you and maybe I still do."

"Really?"  She seemed surprised by this, "You know what's funny.  I kind of want to be you or at least who you will get to be in three years.  I want to be nineteen for real.  I want to go to college and not in the super serious take online classes way Ruth does.  In the live the dorms, join a sorority, dance at frat parties, and giggle all night with my roommates kind of way."

"Why don't you?" I asked, for the first time realizing that even though my cousins were all grown none of them had left.  They all lived here in this house as if they were frozen as teenagers waiting for their mom to come back from the dead.

"We can't we have to protect this house and it's the only place we're safe," she said resigned.

"Oh, I'm sorry." 

"It's ok, I've gotten used to it."  She said, "I think I was really just saying all that to say I'm dumb, Addy.  I shouldn't have listened to them, my whole life is just being bossed around, and there is a ton of stuff I can't have, but now that you know our secret, I hope we can be friends like we used to be."

I thought it over and I felt bad for Helen because as hard as I found it to be their left-out cousin, I was starting to think she had it harder.  Her whole world was her sisters and not by her own choice.  "You have to promise not to do it again," I said seriously.

"I promise," Helen said with some of her excited squeal coming back to her voice.

I then decided to extend an olive branch and I walked across the room to hug her.  She smelled like strawberries like she had all those years ago and I felt grateful that maybe something good would come out of this.  After that we sat on the bed and talked about Joan and Ruth and our moms and my brother and Vivian like we had when we were kids.  Finally, I said, "is it really so terrible being a witch?"  

"I don't know what all Ruth told you, but it definitely complicates things," she said lounging back on her pillows while I sat on the foot of her bed.

"Yeah, she made it sound like it sucks," I admitted.

"The way they do it," Helen said, "it does."

"What do you mean?"

"I have lots of fun, if they're not around."

"Like?"

"Let me show you," she immediately hopped up excited.  "Let's go out tonight!"

"Go out?  I'm 16 and my very strict mom is in the living room."  I laughed.

"We won't tell her." Helen said excitedly.

I was enjoying reconnecting with Helen, so I let myself get swept away in her excitement.  Soon we had a plan and we only needed to wait until night to execute it.