When you first walk into my house you see a portrait of my sister Cleo hanging on the wall.
There is one of me right next to it, but you really only notice my sister. She got the looks of the family. Long, thick, full hair and bright, deep, rich, brown eyes. I have the same features, but they don't fit on me like they do my sister.
I was just plain.
I was unnoticed.
I was often alone when I got home, first of all.
Most of the time my only two friends were busy with their different activities. Once and a while when they weren't so busy we would go to our favorite bakery for a snack, but even after that I was alone again.
I would often sit with a snack watching re-runs of Doctor Who in our living room after school. My sister and my friends I had were at various after school activities. After a while, my mom would come home and work in her office. Shortly afterwards my dad would follow and work in his office.
I would go unnoticed.
My sister and I were three years apart and we were very close when we were younger. When she moved up to high school, she fell into some trouble, and we had a falling out.
I remember the first time that the police came to our house quite well.
I had just started high school as a freshman, with my sister as a senior.
My parents were working in their offices, and I had been sitting on the couch with a bowl of popcorn. The doorbell had rang, so my mother had gone to answer it.
At the door stood a policeman holding the arm of my sister. She had been busted for dealing with some illegal drugs. She got off with a ticket and a warning that time.
But she kept on doing things like this.
Eventually she was given a jail sequence. My parents had hired a lawyer, my sister was sent off to jail and given rehabilitation classes.
She eventually was released and seemed to get better. She finished high school classes, graduated, and was accepted to a small community college about an hour drive away from our home.
By this time I was starting my junior year at high school.
Everything was going right for once.
I continued with my after school bakery with friends or watching Doctor Who re-runs after school while my parents worked away in their offices.
Everything had seemed to be going back to normal.
Until my sister had decided to meet up with some old, druggie, friends of hers before going off to college.
I was woken up in the middle of my dreams one night, by the shrill sounds of my mother's anguished sobbing.
I quickly and quietly scampered down the stairs to see my mother on her knees at the door, with my father standing over her. There was a policeman standing at the door looking sorrowful.
I instantly knew that something had happened with my sister.
She had gotten herself arrested again.
The police man excused himself and shut the door behind him.
"Dad?"
"Go back to bed Casta. I'll talk with you later."
When I had woke up the next morning my mother was already back in her work mode. She was on the phone with the lawyers that we had set up. My dad was at his spot at the table just like normal.
My dad handed me a piece of the newspaper. It told me everything that I needed to know about what had happened last night.
It had turned out that Cleo had been drinking with some of her old friends, and afterwards, decided to drive home. She had hit a boy who was my age and killed him. His name was Arsene and he had been biking home after finishing the night shift at his job.
The police immediately took her into custody and arranged for a court summon. She was held in jail until then.
Everything changed after the accident.
But it didn't seem that way at first.
My parents went to work, and I went to school.
At school everyone had heard about the accident. Thankfully I didn't know too many people and nobody paid much attention to me in the first place. I did get a few strange glances coming my way though. I just kept my head down, and stayed low.
I went home after school and had my normal routine of Doctor Who re-runs.
My mom came home and went straight to work in her office. So did my dad.
And I was left unnoticed again.
Over dinner my mom was working on what to do about Cleo.
My dad and I just poked around at our food.
Eventually my mom was upset that nobody seemed to care about what was going on.
My dad tried to calm her down but she just stormed back to her office. My dad cleaned up all of the dinner things and I retired to my room.
I tried to work on my homework but I couldn't focus. All I could think about, was the boy that was killed.
Arsene.
He was dead. And my own sister, my flesh and blood, was the one who killed him.
I seemed to be the only one in our house who seemed to care about the fact that he would never be doing anything again. My sister took away his future. She took away his life.
My parents only cared about the fact that Cleo was behind bars.
