Amongst the Wind and Waves

It was the summer of '94, a hot and sweltering day when my beloved sister's voice rang from the doorway: "I'll be at the beach; see you in an hour ."That was the last time I heard my sister's voice.  

My sister Julianna was always too beautiful. Her eyes resembled the blue ocean and were filled with depth and ingenuity. To hold onto her gaze was to plunge into the deepest waters, as they held onto you in such a mesmerizing way. Something that made Julianna so loved by all was the way her eyes constantly seemed to tell one they were believed in and loved. Thus, Julliana's living beauty and warmth, which I worshipped, made the way her body was found all the more shocking. Her once silky waves of golden hair were found matted and mangled, and her thin, wiry frame was deformed in contortions as her jagged bones stretched out of her skin frantically. Her spine was twisted most unnaturally as her legs incurvated beneath her, and those watery eyes of hers that hypnotized all were smashed into the rocks of the cliff. My most loved sister lay there, faceless, barely recognizable as a human body. 

When Julianna's body was recovered, the whole family could scarcely believe it. While my mother sobbed uncontrollably to my silent father, I could only blink. It was as if my sister's life stood aloft between my eyelids, and I believed that each time I blinked, I could bring her back. It was only when I turned and sought the hands of my older sister herself that her absence screamed at me. Julianna's death was ruled a suicide. Simply stating that our sister, so full of life and love, was capable of holding enough sadness to end her own life felt like a mockery of Julianna herself to each and every one of us. Whilst my mother lowered her eyes and slowly nodded at the policeman, as if hoping that each nod would ease the pain – I was filled with rage as I remembered Julianna and her ambitions. It was then and there that I told myself Julianna did not want her life to end. Just a mere few days ago, she implored me to help her write a magazine article; she had gushed about her dreams of moving to New York next summer to pursue her career in journalism, and she had told me about her plans of going on a boating trip with her boyfriend. Trey. So, when I was standing in front of her half-written magazine article on The Superficial Women: To Feel or Not to Feel, I was even more taken aback. Within Julianna's poorly written paragraphs, she had revealed a facet of pain and raw fears that none of us could fathom nor recognize in her loveliness. It confused me how my sister, who was so beautiful and embodied the sun herself, could even experience a glimpse of suffering. But if it was so unbelievable... then why did the inspector immediately determine the article as evidence of Julianna's 'suicide'? 

In my frenzied refusal to believe in my sister's sadness and suicide, I searched madly for any alternate form of explanation on why my dear sister was dead. After many distressing conversations with Julianna's college roommates and friends, to my horror, I learned that Julianna and Trey were quarreling and that their arguments would be loud and even violent at times. I felt defeated as I thought that the version of my sister whom I knew as calm, patient, and kind was dying, as I quickly unveiled more about Julianna that I hadn't known. It was as though I was desperately grasping for the version of my dear sister, which I knew, yet I could not stop myself from investigating Julianna and her secrets hidden from our family. In my younger years, I chalked it up to my inability to cope with the death of my sister, and I was comfortable believing that I was living in vain desperation to keep any version of my sister alive when she was already cold in her white coffin. 

Upon learning how Trey had often fought with her over his pathetic jealousy, I became obsessed with the death of my sister. I was entirely convinced that Julianna's 23-year-old boyfriend was a killer. It started relatively harmless...I would trail his car in the middle of the night, hoping to see Trey perform some fatal flaw. Perhaps he had killed my sister to pursue another relationship? Or had his unreasonable jealousy finally consumed him? More and more, I found myself not mourning properly for Julianna, but in my plight for vengeance for my dead sister, I grew more and more paranoid and felt myself on the brink of lunacy. 

My suspicions towards Trey had decayed so severely that by October, only two months after my sister's death, I lightly lifted the crack in Trey's window and padded into his living room. A small, dreary house in which I had attended a few parties... with Julianna. But in the dim light of the early hours, the clothes on the floor seemed far more menacing. Slowly, I trifled through drawers, looking for any hint of a murderer's antics. Perhaps letters from Juliana stating how discontent she was in her relationship, or even photographs of him with other women. Then, all of a sudden, the lights flickered on. As my breath hitched at the back of my throat, I glanced up at the shirtless man standing before me on his stairs, his jaw clenched and fists curled around a bat.

Half expecting him to kill me, I was even more stunned when his face softened, and his hands fell to his side. "Jesus Gia, what on earth are you doing here? It's 4 am," he muttered as his nostrils flared. "I know you killed my sister, Trey," I spat back vindictively, refusing to feel any moral of fear. "What the hell, Gia? Why would you say that I loved Julianna? I really did, and she would really hate hearing you say that. Actually...you know what? Screw this? Your sister always said you were crazy, but I didn't know you were actually insane like this. Get help, Gia. You look terrible," he breathed back at me relentlessly in disbelief. At that moment, my fury and grief both churned within me with such hot, burning fleets of rage; refusing to listen to any more of Trey's lies, I rushed out of the house, pushing past photographs of him and Julianna on the coffee table. As I slammed my car door, Trey's words plagued and echoed in my mind: "Your sister always said you were crazy ."The nerve that man had to lie so blatantly to my face about how my sister, who I loved so dearly and had loved me so dearly, would say that about me made me experience an emotion so vicious and wild, which I could only describe best as rage mixed with grief. In my fitful stupor, I slammed my foot on the accelerator and drove without a clue as to where I was going. 

Two miles south later, with eyes, blurred with tears and hands that shook on the steering wheel; I gasped when my eyes were met with the familiar bend of the trees and the jagged ridges of the cliffs overhanging the beach. With a jerk, I stopped the car and gazed beyond the window. This was where Julianna's body was found. In fact, this was the exact same spot I first saw her corpse in as I stood above her with my mother and father, as a family in disbelief. I shook as I drew my knees towards my chest and let out a shaky sob, "Why am I here? I don't want to be here," I heard my own voice cry. With my mind distorted and warped in a whirlwind of frenzy, I yanked the glovebox open in search of a cigarette to calm my nerves. As I dug wildly, throwing crumpled receipts and cards onto the floor, my fingertips lightly grazed a plastic vessel. Confused, I fished it out and slowly, the waves of disorientation ebbed, and I was left painfully aware of what I was clutching—lithium Carbonate. 

Horror seized me completely as reality struck me, paralyzing me with a fear so overwhelming and consuming that I could barely breathe. For each powdery white circle within the plastic bag, I felt more dread and clawing in my stomach. Lithium was medication for my type I Bipolar disorder, the medication that stopped me from frequent episodes of mania and aggression, the medication that I have precisely stopped taking for four months straight now, standing between my fingers, taunting me. 

That was when I remembered it all... 

It was the summer of '94, a hot and sweltering day when my beloved sister's voice rang from the doorway; "I'll be at the beach; see you in an hour." I skirted behind her, my own legs, less long and slender behind her, as I shouted breathlessly, "Julianna, wait! Take me with you!". A sigh of repressed annoyance replied to my calls as Julianna halted abruptly by the doorway, her own angular legs jutted to the sides; "Gia, no, I'm going with Trey and girls from the college; you won't know anybody." "I know you, and Trey" I pleaded breathlessly, my arm now gripping Julianna's tiny wrist. Julianna tugged her arm away swiftly, "Gia, not this again, stay home. Don't you have other people to see? Trey and my friends don't want some eighteen-year-old tagging along; we're twenty-one; get that through to your head, sweetheart." Julianna's face was stern, but her eyes remained kind as if telling me that I wouldn't fit in. Despite her gentle eyes, I could not ignore the hint of cruelty, the insinuation that I was jealous of her, envious of her boyfriend and her friends. This argument had been festering for months now, with resentment brewing from both sides as she felt that I hungered for life, and I felt that I no longer had a place in it. "Fine. Take me to the beach; I won't bother you and your little friends there," I said indomitably. Julianna's usually tender face was etched in irritation as she opened the car door for me. It was the least she could do as my loving sister. 

The drive towards the beach was silent, with Julianna's blue eyes fixed onto the road, mine along the coastline as Julianna's open-roofed car stretched up the cliffs in preparation to veer down the path towards the beach. The ticking of my sister's car beat on rhythmically when suddenly it sputtered, and the car wouldn't drive any longer. "I thought Trey had filled this up," Julianna huffed as she slapped her hand against the steering wheel and weaved herself to the side of the car, and I followed her. "Do you get Trey to do everything for you?" I snickered as Julianna's head snapped towards me hurtfully. "Gia, are you off your medicine? You've been making a lot of horrid remarks lately, and they are not appreciated," she said sternly, her eyes piercing mine once again.

"I hate it when you look at me like that," I stated truthfully. "Well, I hate you entirely," Julianna said softly as if it was under her breath, but I had heard and was caught off guard. "What?" my voice quivered now; I knew we were quarreling but not to this hurtful extent. "You are always here, and I can't say or do anything to make you go away because you are my nutcase sister who makes no one in this family happy. Don't you get it? We always walk on eggshells around you, and quite frankly, I've grown tired of it," Julianna said as she narrowed her eyes and approached me slowly, each step seemingly more menacing than the last one. "Julianna, knock it off; the road is narrow," I said nervously, glancing at the cliff edge I was approaching as I stepped away from my sister. With the sun beaming overwhelmingly overhead, a harsh shadow was cast over Julianna's face. Inches from me now, I saw it. There was never beauty nor kindness in my sister, but only resentment and hatred for me disguised. Consumed with fear, I stared helplessly as my older sister was only mere inches from me now; as she struck to push me down the cliff, I flinched and ducked in the nick of time, screaming as I watched my beautiful sister descend through the air until her blood splattered around her like a fallen angel's wings. So there, in the blazing summer heat of '94, two sisters delivered the final chorus in that final hour with synchronized screams.