At Aunt Amy's

Chapter 1

From what I remember, Aunt Amy never liked me that much. Every time I've visited her, it's been, Brenda and Hazel.

"Oh, Brenda! You've made high honor roll again! Oh, Hazel, you look so adorable today! You really made it far!"

Imagine that banter going on for four hours while you just sit and watch. Yep, that's my relationship with her. Brenda was the teenager who got her life together at fifteen and no one could be more proud of. Hazel was the cute child that could make people smile even after a cat puked on them. And then there was me.

"Oh, hi Avery," was often all I got. Quick acknowledgment that I existed, and then she'd go to gush over my sisters. Because, you know, what could she say to the middle child? "Hey, I heard your favorite movie and musical was Heathers, but never your favorite show?"

"Hey, I heard you taught yourself guitar, but aren't gonna be the Slash anytime soon?"

"Hey, I heard you diagnosed your own sexuality from the internet. You sure you don't have any doubts?"

However, I didn't fantasize about the day I heard this. So you could imagine my disappointment when I found out I'd be spending a year with her.

The two-hour plane ride was filled with Hazel staring out the window, Brenda talking to someone across the aisle, and me sitting in between them staring forward. I'd tried to distract myself with the in-flight movie about owls, but it kept on glitching out. Goddamn plane movies, I thought, leaning my head back. I glanced to my left at Hazel, crossing my arms. Hazel told me twice that the clouds looked like snow, and flying above hoards of them makes it look like we're in Antarctica.

She was an antisocial child. Fixated on certain things. Didn't speak her first word until three years old (and hasn't stopped talking since). Dad took her to the doctor and came back telling us she "was on the spectrum. Mild Autism." I was completely fine with it. She never annoyed me too much. How could I care how she acted at school? Honestly, now, I can barely believe she was ever "on the spectrum."

Brenda, on the other hand, hand-picked her friends as if a single toxic relationship would kill her. I was a few inches taller, and but she still looked older. Even though she didn't eat enough to get curves (not that she was anorexic, she just didn't have time). She had light bags under her eyes. She dressed like she worked at an office. She didn't slouch in her chair. She was already ready to take on life.

While Brenda looked twenty-five, I looked seventeen. I was already 5-foot-8 at fourteen and filled a c-cup. I wore short jackets with fur on top and apparently had an "attitude" sometimes. When people complain that kids grow up too fast nowadays, I like to remind them that I can't help myself.

I heard Brenda yelp. I whipped my head to the right to see her covering her ears. Unlike her, my ears didn't pop on airplanes. Neither did Hazel's. She just couldn't keep her eyes off the window. I just sighed as I waited for the airplane to land and taxi, and for me to face yet another judge on the trail of my sorry little life.

After grabbing all our suitcases from the baggage claim, we waited where all the chauffeur's held signs with clients names. I could imagine their confusion when they see three kids get picked up by a woman with a haircut that never left the nineties. As we waited, Hazel, out of the blue, blurted out, "Maybe this will be the year Brenda gets a boyfriend."

"Oh, hush," Brenda replied. Yes, hush. I was thanking my lucky stars Hazel didn't ask me instead. I never really felt the urge to get a boyfriend like other kids. I never really had a crush, even. But I never really minded or noticed until I reached middle school. I got to the point I decided to do the only thing a twelve-year-old could turn to: search for truth on the internet. I went straight to the articles about the LGBT community. And as it turns out, there are about a thousand different sexualities. After browsing through a bunch of options, I diagnosed myself with something called aromantic. To put it simply, it's when someone rarely or never experiences romantic attraction. Out of everything I've seen, this felt the most right.