Spirit Awaken

It's never over

My eyes are heavy, and I roll my head to face outside the window. We've been in the car now for about three hours and its starting to become less exhausting and more intolerable. I watch the green valley move rhythmically up and down as we pass. If I knew Avery weren't watching, I may even follow along with my fingers, pretending to run alongside them as I did when I was young. We're too old for that now.

Since the accident it's been hard to get anything out of Avery. She's like a shallow husk of the girl I used to know. It's strange to see her like this. Almost catatonic, unmoving, miserable. I look at her green eyes and it feels hollow. I want to reach in and beg for my sister to come back. My twin sister. The one who stood up for me on the playground, tied my shoelaces, wiped my tears. I don't know what I could even say to bring her back.

She was a lot closer with our mom before the accident so I can't blame her for taking this so hard. My mother was always rather cold towards me. Keeping me at arm's length and being sure that I knew I would never be as loved as Avery. I don't resent Avery for being the favorite. She was my favorite too. She was special, everyone knew. She radiated every room with her allure. Now looking at her newly dyed red hair, forehead pressed against the window, her warmth has seemed to dissipate.

"How much longer?" I ask my Dad who sat quietly in the driver seat watching the road intently behind his thick rimmed glasses. He smiled a little bit but didn't look back at me. "Probably another hour, give or take."

I sigh in mild annoyance. We are moving to Fair Haven Vermont, beautiful I'm sure, but moving here from Pittsburgh may use a bit of adjusting. My mom would never settle down in a place like Fair Haven. She never grew out of her party phase. I don't know much about my mother, but I know that she was almost never around. She'd wake up at two pm and be gone til late in the morning. I wanted to ask where she went to, but I knew better than to question her. Where my Dad saw a sweet adoring wife, me and Avery seemed to always be chasing our tails for her attention.

Her death was a freak accident. The insurance claim says as much, a part of me still wonders if there was someone who had hated my mom so much that they wanted to do that to her. To burn alive must be an agonizing way to go. I remember the next morning, after she had been taken out in a body bag, walking into the house with Avery to collect some basic things for us and our father, I will never be able to forget the smell of burnt flesh that flooded my nose.

Her funeral was an empty one. She wasn't much of a person to keep friends. Nor family. I picked a dress she had bought for me two years before hand that she picked out for me to wear to my school choir concert. The dress was ankle length and of a velvet material with small floral detailing along the collar. Though we didn't connect on much, my mom always admired my voice, she would compare it to an angel. Though I didn't much like choir I did it for her, once again chasing my tail for her approval. I haven't sang since she passed.