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Ch.9-The Swan

So after the day out with Alec, he returned to completely pretending like I didn't exist.

I figured I had made him uncomfortable or something with my questions, and sent him back into that shell I was starting to hate. And I really had thought we'd made some progress. Apparently not.

Just like he asked, for a week I didn't bug him. I left him entirely to his own devices, letting him do as he wished. The curiosity and the need to just speak with him was killing me. Why? I didn't know. He was this mystery I had put upon myself to figure out and I could hardly do that when I still didn't know anything.

But besides my Alec problems, I found my own sense of identity crisis wasn't fairing too well. My sleeping habits had declined. I was waiting for full-out insomnia. On more than one occasion I almost broke down and asked my grandfather to get me some prescribed pills, but I stopped. He didn't need anything or anybody else to worry about.

So I dropped it.

But soon he would be able to tell. The fidgetiness, the puffy eyes; the glassiness. I could keep it under wraps for the time being, but nothing lasted forever.

It was one particular night that I seemed to be having a terrible time. It was a little over a week after the whole outing with Alec, when my inner turmoil really starting bubbling. It was still hard dark, and I couldn't stop tossing and turning. Memories, thoughts, anxieties, all wormed their way into my head and set out to screw me up.

"Lily, why are you all covered in mud? What have I told you about playing outside in the rain? Now I have to wash all of your clothes. Why can't you go upstairs and play dolls like your sister?"

"Because I like to play outside," I had replied, simple logic of a seven-year-old. "Tommy and Brendan are out there, and we were making mud angels."

Her lips had curled upward in disgust. "That's revolting, dear. Go and wash up. And in the future, be more like your sister."

And like always, I'd had no other choice but to silently comply.

"Lily, you missed your sister's homecoming night. We walked her out on the field in her cheerleading uniform and everything."

"I had a science fair," I had told her. And it had been a pretty big deal, considering I was one of two kids selected in my eighth grade class-scratch that, the entire middle school-to go. "You guys didn't show up."

"Your sister's nearly to graduating year, honey, don't you think that gets priority?"

No. It shouldn't have. But all I did, again, was passively obey.

Her homecoming shouldn't have gotten priority. There should have been some semblance of balance between her homecoming and my science fair. There should have been some congratulations on both ends.

But there was only time for her. Only ever just time for Jasmine.

"Lilia, you can't go to that concert, because we have to support Jasmine in her runway shoot."

"But Mom," I had replied, "they're only going on concert three places in the United States, and the other two are on the east coast, and after this they won't tour again for at least three years."

"Priorities, Lily. You have to support your sister and her success."

My sister and her success.

Because it was only ever about Jasmine.

I was the odd one out. The brunette in a family of blondes. The screw-up. The mistake, should one go that far. And I would. Because that was what I felt like. Like my parents had intended on Jasmine and gotten everything they could have wanted, and I was that unfortunate break of the condom or something. The reminder of a mistake. Something ruined.