THE UNTOLD

SECRETS AND LIES

My sister and I grew up in a very loving household, our parents were your everyday suburban parents. We had curfews, chores, punishments and stuff. That didn't stop us from breaking the rules though.

It didn't stop us from sneaking out to attend college frat parties while underaged or from throwing a party when they were out of town.

I guess our parents should have realized that we didn't learn from the punishments they gave, which naturally include grounding, seizing our devices, reducing allowance money and so on.

Even with our mayhem we were the better kids on the block in the better part of the neighborhood in town. The ones that the police didn't come to pick up for passing a red light, speeding ticket, possession of drugs. That type of mayhem. yeah.

The title of good kids, I would say made me proud, a little too proud that I felt above everyone. In my mind I would scoff at my 'nice' neighbors trying to talk to me if I got caught up in little chaos.

"Why don't you tell your own kid that?."

"Save that for your daughter would you?."

"Try keeping your son on a leash."

Well, till I was greatly humbled.

Growing up, I and my sister would boo at my parents making out and scrunch up our faces at them. I remember making a pact to never get married when I was six and she was eight on the floor in her room wearing ducky Pyjamas.

She was my first best friend and I was hers and because we were so close in age, we were like twins, went every where together, did every thing together. We also looked very much alike, that people couldn't tell us apart.

But it all changed when she started to have boobs, when her butt grew, and get catcalled by older guys. She was an early bloomer; our aunties would whisper when they came over.

I walked in on one aunt warning my mom that, early blooming meant that she was already sexually active.

They weren't quite correct, but then it didn't take long for her to be. Our parents had typical 9 to 5 jobs, and wouldn't be home till seven or eight depending on traffic so we walked home from school ourselves.

Those three short hours was the perfect avenue for all hell to break loose.

By the time we were in high school, my sister was a show stopper, an attention grabber, a straight A student and naturally as her sister, I was popular too.

Boys would wait at the school gate after school just to talk to her, and I would keep a small distance third wheeling.

At first, we would laugh at them once they left, laughing at their stupidity and inability to strike and continue a great conversation. It was like an inside joke every time. Till it was not.

One day she just didn't say anything. He was at the gate, he walked us to the intersection, they waited and talked for a little over an hour till he went his way.

I waited for her to brief me after he left, like she usually would, but nothing. We just walked home in silence and went to bed in silence. And just like that, she shut me out of her life.

Soon third wheeling her as more guys vied for her attention was no longer exciting, because I felt more like a pest - a bother.

For years I lived in guilt that I had done something wrong to make her stop talking to me. I tied my essence to her so much that it felt like a part of my life had been stripped away. I was my sister's little sister. If I wasn't that, then I was nothing.