little sister

happiness and love, laced with ignorance. four hundred and thirty-four days' worth of it. then a phone call from a stranger brought down the fragile card house that he and little sister had built over all those days. little sister's reality shattered into billions of tiny, jagged shards.

little sister knew better than to build her life on the foundation of another, but, damn it, she couldn't resist. not this time. little sister also knew that she would regret her decision, and oh, dear me, was she regretting it now. her existence as she had known it - the one she had been so, so sure of - was over. her compass, her trust, her innocence, her heart: all were broken beyond repair.

the rest of little sister's tale of woe is a hazy, grey blur to her, but not to me. i was there for it all. i was there for the thick, splintering piece of wood, clenched in an elder brother's fist as he threatens death to the low-life scumbag that destroyed his little sister. i was there for little sister collapsing in to her brother's arms, sobbing into his shoulder as the slowly dimming moon and stars watch from outside her open window. she felt weak, helpless, and entirely alone.

is it not such a travesty that in this moment little sister had never been closer to her brother? why did it have to take this level of misery to draw them together? why?

she still sees him everywhere, you know. he's nowhere to be found, but little sister still sees him. according to her, he hides in her bed, entangling himself in blankets and secrets to stay concealed. she knows he would have considered hiding in the closet so he could jump out and scare her, but he was claustrophobic. to little sister, he is every stranger she passes, every set of light brown eyes that locks on her own hollow, dull, colorless ones. she sees him in what she barely manages to eat, in the bites of thin mint cookies and bottles of water. little sister sees him in every shadow, every faded star, every sudden movement, and every closing of her eyes. she sees him in the arguments that are stuck on replay in her mind, in the thoughts that screamed but ended up coming out as shaky, tearful whispers when he showed up at her window at three in the morning, crying and begging for forgiveness.

little sister should not have listened to him, and she knew it. do you know yet what the saddest part of this tale is? little sister did listen to him. she took in his words and began to set herself up for yet another heartbreak from him.

why?

why?

why?

second chances were planned in rainy, grey children's parks. phone calls were made, and messages were left.

"i thought you would be here. why aren't you here? you begged for this! i... i thought you still loved me... "

"you know what? i wasn't even going to show up. i-i... i showed up for you. for you!"

"fine. forget it."

but how could he forget if little sister herself could not forget? common sense was no longer the motivation for her actions. now little sister needed answers, so she went to his house to track him down and demand them. he would not have come to her window the way he did, folding his very last dollar up into a ring for her, just to leave her stranded in the rain now. as little sister makes the seemingly endless trek to the place and person that she had once called home, i am there with her. watching. keeping her safe. worrying for her. i can even sense that she is praying silently to herself, to me, begging for me to be there and for things to finally go right.

as little sister travels, she discovers that her path is littered with something bloody, broken, and familiar. the shards of who she once was, there, lying beneath her feet, waiting patiently for her. some were of her former passions, things she now had no interest in. some were of people that little sister had gained and lost over the course of her oxymoronically short yet infinite life. she picked them all up and held them tight, ignoring how the sharp edges dug at her skin. as she nears closer to her old home, little sister finds the sharpest and bloodiest of the shards.

now little sister has found every warning she ever received to never be with him in the first place. why had she not listened? why?

little sister squeezes these shards so tightly that they break her skin, her body, her entire self. cracks crawl up her arms and do not stop crawling until the shards of her body mingle with those of her past life.

a fire sparks inside her then, one that had gone out long ago, one that she has subconsciously yearned for all that time. she was determined now on never again looking back on those worst of times. it was time now for her to build a new compass from the shattered remains of the old one and change her direction for the better.

he had loved her long hair; he claimed it made her look more feminine. so little sister held a pair of scissors to her locks and began the transformation of her life, one snip at a time.

he did not like it when little sister wore makeup; he claimed it hid her beauty. so she dusted off the box where her makeup lay in eager wait, finally opening it for the first time in four hundred and thirty-four days.

he had left some of his clothes in little sister's bedroom for her to wear; he claimed she looked better in his clothes. so she took a trash bag and and filled it with them and every other trace of him that she could find. she tossed it away without a second thought. little sister was starting her life anew, and i had never been more proud of her or seen her more alive. she was finally free of the sin that he was.

little sister was finally free to be who she was meant to be. are you free, too?