Seventeen year old Safaya Bennett must navigate young adulthood under the stresses of her sins, her crumbling relationship with her twin sister, Rue, and a crippling mental disorder that makes her very dependent on her relationship with Nate Jacobs...
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There's only a handful of things that I know for sure, and one of those things, is that my sister is very, very, sensitive.
Safaya returned home the next night after fucking Nate seven times. She stumbled through the door, quietly, and tried to make it to her room to lay her sore body down. I saw her as soon as she got in, I was on the couch watching some movie I wasn't paying attention to and anxiously waiting for Jules to text me. At the time she was emotionally distant, which meant I was about to step into depression. Safaya saw me on the couch and didn't say anything, and considering what happened when she was here last, I'm not surprised.
I knew I was wrong and had plenty of time to think it over. My mom made it a point to let me know I was wrong too. I expected her to yell at me but it never came. She was genuinely disappointed and she said I had hit Saf way too hard. A part of my mom always knew that Nate never really loved Saf, but he made my sister happy, and my mom loved seeing her smile more than anything. I knew saying sorry was a gamble but I wanted to try anyway. After forcing her away it was the least I could do.
"Hey." I said quietly as she passed the kitchen.
Saf looked over her shoulder. "Hey." She repeated.
"Can we, uh, can we talk?" I asked.
She stood there momentarily, thinking it over. It's almost like I could see her weigh the pros and cons in her head. "Yeah. Let me go put my stuff away." She disappeared down the hall, and waved at our mom who was on the phone. I heard her throw her bag on the bed and honestly, I didn't think she was going to come back. But I was proved wrong when she trudged back into the living room and sat on the couch with me. "So?" She asked.
I could tell something was different about her. It was the same look in her eyes that Jules had when she was falling in love with Tyler. Everything about her seemed brand new, her skin, her eyes, her smile. I didn't want to think about my twin sister having sex but it was apparent that she had ran the bases with Nate while she was away.
"Listen," I turned to face her on the couch. "I've been doing some thinking and, um, I want to apologize to you for what I said the other day." I stumbled around my words.
Saf's eyes grew wide. "Thank you." She said in surprise. "I feel like things have been really bad. I know that it's ..." She trailed off, staring down in her lap. "it's my fault. And I don't know if we can fix it--"
"You know how to fix it, Saf." I interrupted. My voice was quiet but firm, because we both knew what she was referring to. My sister isn't dumb, she's very far from it actually, she just doesn't know how to navigate confrontation. Or conflict. Or herself.
She hung her head. "You're right." She mumbled.
Safaya got up from the couch and walked away silently. As she left I didn't get that feeling in my chest that I had just pushed her away, or that I messed up. I could see it in her eyes that something had changed significantly. It was big of her to begin to take ownership for our failed relationship, I'll give her that, but there was still a sense of uncertainty with us.
She walked down the hallway until she reached a room she hadn't been in, in a while. She was nervous, but, there was a lot on her mind and she needed some form of release.
"Hey." Gia waved. Laying on her bed and watching tv.
"Can I come in and talk?" Saf asked.
Instantly she made some space on her small bed. Safaya never wanted to just 'talk' because she was so trapped in her head it was scary. That, or, she was never home enough to even have an actual conversation with anyone in this house. Gia brought her feet into her chest so Saf could sit at the foot of the bed. The youngest Bennett looked to her trying to figure out what was plaguing her mind.
Gia paused her show and gave her sister all of the focus. "Hey." She said quietly, a small smile on her face.
"Hey." My sister said dryly. "Something has been really on my mind since the carnival." She didn't have to look at Gia to know she had a guilty look on her face. Things between them were rocky before but the night after the carnival just made it worse. Gia tried making up for it by coming to her defense a few days ago, but, it was only a surface level mend.
The truth is, Saf had a lot of shit on her mind lately. During her stay at Nate's she thought they were beginning to click in a way that they never had before. She thought that having sex with him meant that she was his and he was hers, but, she was wrong. She had a strange feeling in her chest whenever Nate picked up his phone. He got lost in it and she had never seen him so distracted like this, not even with Maddy.
"I'm really sorry, Saf, for everything." She looked to her older sister. Searching for any form of acceptance in her eyes. "I was really wrong."
Safaya placed her hand on Gia's knee. "Listen, it's not about right or wrong right now. I don't want you to make the same mistakes that Rue and I have made. And we've made a lot." She shared.
"What do you mean?" Gia inquired.
"What I mean is," My sister sighed. She laid back onto the small bed and stared at the ceiling. "When we were growing up it's like everything that could go wrong, went wrong. You know, I would go to school and it was full of kids who never understood me or what was going on in my mind." Safaya hated talking about school. The kids were mean and said fucked up shit to her all the time and it was just piling onto the trauma she already faced. "I remember they would call me a retard because I couldn't be without Rue. Or they would see mom and dad drop me off and I would have a temper tantrum, throwing myself onto the sidewalk because I was afraid for them to leave me. Kids are fucking mean, Gia."
Being with Nate gave my sister an advantage. She was known, she was liked, somewhat understood. For once she had friends, if Nate and his team of jocks really counted as the friendly type. He made sure nobody fucked with her. And for the first time in a long time, Safaya felt seen.
The young girl gasped. "Wow." She said in a hushed tone. She couldn't believe what she had heard.
"So that night at the carnival just took me back to that place. That place of kids, like Troy, just being assholes to me for no reason. And I'm sure he didn't mean it and it was just the weed or whatever. In all honestly, I probably deserved it, but that's why I left." Safaya sniffled, wiping a tear that had escaped. "Because I was so embarrassed and hurt. And when I found myself in that mindset I always turned to drugs, G, always. I never want you to be like me."
Gia was quiet, she began thinking to herself and it was making her head hurt. She was concerned of the stress and worry that she had put on her sister. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to take you back to that place. I guess I was just trying to kind of get back at you for what happened because ... you ditched us, Saf, and I hated you for it. For a really long time. But I understand how your brain works, kind of, and you needed Nate. More than you needed any of us." She frowned.
Safaya smiled. "And that's how I know you're different than me."
"Why is that?"
"Because you actually know how to say sorry." My sister chuckled to herself. "I never apologized to you or to Rue for not being there the day she overdosed. I fucked up and I just kept living nothing had ever happened. And then Rue was gone. My sister was gone and I was always with Nate, I didn't even support you or Mom. That's one of my biggest regrets in life."
Gia sat up and hugged Safaya, feeling it in her heart to give her some type of affection. They stayed there for a while silent, just trying to process everything that had happened. Safaya felt better. Like the weight of the world wasn't on her chest; maybe just the weight of the neighborhood. I wasn't sure what made my sister suddenly so open and understanding of what she had done, but I was grateful it was there, because it began to bring us all together.
And it's fucked up, to say the least, the event that actually did bring us together again.
