Reminiscing

Reminiscing

“Okay, okay. I’m sorry.”

My cheek still stung and my sister’s shit-eating smirk didn’t help. The close circle around me dissipated. Dad took his seat back on his chair, turning the TV up louder and my mother sat by her laptop, I can hear the bells of her game chirping from the speaker. My sister sits next to my mom, laying her head and my mom’s leg, my mother’s hand instantly stroking her hair gently. I’m jealous. I can admit it. My mother and I never really got along, I had been a daddy’s girl my whole childhood, until his yelling became too loud and too often.  His career choice leaking into the way he fathers with interrogations and manipulation, twisting words in any way that pins blame into your skin.

I know I’m not perfect I can yell, I can say hateful words. I used to take the easy way out of chores, and I still get an attitude sometimes. But this all feels so different. It seems to get worse every day, I seem to get worse every day.

              This life started early. I was relentlessly bullied from my sister. She was always an enigma; taking on the personality of her favorite character in whatever she was reading at the time.  She devours literature. She’s taken up the temperament of some teenaged girl protagonist whose parents don’t pay attention to her because her little sibling takes all the attention. She lives in the odium she invented between us. It’s powerful to her. Why would you have to ever look inward if you play a different character every week? My parents were easy to read. Paisley was difficult, the 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea paradox that I was never armed for. She is three years older than me. Ahead of me in every way. She was already casting an impossible shadow over me at ten, with her academic prowess and low weight (my mother was so afraid I would turn out “fat”). I used to follow her around like a puppy. Sit with her while she read, watched her play video games, tried to fit in with her and her friends. I was a glutton for punishment when I was younger.

The thing about a toxic relationship, is that one person is always trying and one isn’t (they just act like they are). I played the games she wanted to play, followed her rules, until I couldn’t anymore. I wasn’t good at making friends. I looked to my sister for companionship and after being bitten many times, I eventually learned that loneliness was better.  She resented me for taking that power from her, you can’t have power over someone who hides from you. That is what I do now. I hide.

 I climb the stairs as quietly as I can. I close my door, I’ve always wished for a lock, but I never got one. Anger. I feel so angry. I take a few breaths. Anger was my father’s permanent state of being, willfully ignorant my mother, and my sister played the victim so well she should carry white chalk in her pocket. I used to be stronger. I used to yell, stick up for people. It’s hard to behave when behavior wasn’t modeled to you. Instead of strong, I became a doormat. I found a way to read other’s emotions before I even enter the room.

I pick up the toppled bookshelf. Collecting my books from across the floor. I avoid the areas of the floor I know squeak. Stay quiet. Be agreeable. Let them forget you exist. Words I memorized along with my times tables and spelling practice. I am fourteen now. I have lived fourteen years. I started hiding three years ago. It hurt how no one noticed. I wasn’t missed on the main floor of the house, out of sight, out of mind.

My sister and I had fought, obviously. I forget what she originally wanted, I only know that saying ‘no’ and asking her to leave too many times with too much attitude set her off. She threw my belongings around. Throwing candles, books, my makeup, anything she could grab around. The noise was certainly enough to coax a “what the hell is going on up there?” from my dad, but not enough to actually inspire any action. Once my belongings were sufficiently strewn about my room the tears started their practiced rush down her cheeks flushed with frustration, rehearsed sobs fell from her throat. She ran down the stairs, I could hear the slanted story (weighed vastly in her favor) she told, ‘I was just trying to talk to her’ ‘see? I always try to hang out with her and she blows me off’

“Katy Anne!!”

              The full name. I was in trouble. I was mad. I walked down the stairs, walking to my execution. I walk by the living room décor, my fingers tracing the table, leaving lines in the dust. I was the dust, a nuisance to my mom who polishes the wooden tables every few weeks, visible in the air only when the sun was just right, then a brush and I was gone. I turn, finally facing my parents, each comforting my sister. I got my blue eyes from my father, but his were ice while mine were a hot spring, just wanting to give comfort. My father sneered, yes, sneered it is not an exaggeration. I’ve seen that look so many times; his top lip curls up, baring his teeth, a venomous tone and a face that only held disgust,

“What the hell is wrong with you, Kid?” I hate the way he says ‘kid’ it’s the same every time; cruel and condescending, “I don’t know what to do with you.”

              What the hell was wrong with me? I don’t know. I used to answer “nothing!” with tears running down my face. I now don’t answer at all. This was a question he’d asked me since I was born. I remember watching a home video, and seeing my three-year-old self goofing off. Only for my father to snarl out his, “what the hell is wrong with you?” I didn’t have an answer then, and I still didn’t now.

I’m tired, so tired, “I didn’t do anything!”

“Why can’t you two get along?” A question that askes both of us but the weight is mine,

“I’m tired. I didn’t want to talk.”

“You’re tired? You’re tired? What the hell did you do today? You sat on your ass all day!”

              I find that whether I’ve done something or not, rebuffing the claim only caused more pain,

“I’m just tired. I didn’t sleep well.”

“Probably up all night on your phone.”

Do not reply here. It is a trap.

“You bitch all the time,” he imitates my voice, high pitched and snotty, “Paisley never hangs out with me, she doesn’t want to spend time with me!” A normal voice again, “then she tries…and you still bitch!”

Me—“I wouldn’t have been fun anyway, I didn’t want to just yell at her out of nowhere.”

My mom clicks her tongue, I’ve heard this noise so many times that I hear it in m own mind whenever I make a mistake, “you yelled at her anyway, Kate.”

My dad gestures to me, “get over here.” I do and his arms cross, “nothing we do is every good enough for you, you just sit in your room all day.”

This is true, I’ve taken to drawing or watching youtube on my laptop for the whole day,

“Someone tries to spend time with you and you kick them out. Are you even sorry?”

I’d had enough this time, I look Paisley in the eye, I only feel defeat and malice, “I hate you.”

              A rookie mistake on my end. See, my family is one where if you’re told ‘I love you’ you’re not allowed to reply with anything but the same without punishment. Saying ‘fuck’ would lead to less punishment,

A gasp from my mother and more sobs from my sister. My mom hugs her, “why would you say that?”

I met her eyes with the same malevolence, “you always told me never to lie.”

She strikes me, her hand hitting my face with that sharp sound that makes your hand hurt when you hear it. It’s hard not to be staggered for a second. That’s the thing about being slapped; it somehow always surprises you, not the pain, not the action, the noise. It’s like your ears don’t hear it at the moment of impact, but seconds after when the pain kicks in. I don’t want to look at Paisley’s face. I know she’s smiling and it’s hard not to feel bitter about that.

              I’m still recovering, it’s hard to tune into the discipline I’m receiving. All I’ve gain from this conversation in more exhaustion,

“Okay, okay. I’m sorry”

I’ve come back to the beginning.

              Now I am alone in my room, the same place I started, only now I have a mess to clean. It’s dark when I finish, that encompassing dark that comes with a winter night. It’s somehow cozy some nights and despondent others. I’ve said it so many times; I’m so tired. This is my life. This is how I live. It’s day after day. This is the same school week that my mother and I fought because of Paisley’ s whisperings in her ear; something about me having sex with boys in the bathrooms at schools. I don’t interact with boys much, I’m already called butterface because of my acne. The ridiculousness of the accusation is what makes me fight back, but my mother calls me a whore. She will keep this opinion.

              I take my phone out of my pocket to check the time. I have no notifications, no one tried to reach out to me. Somehow, I always keep the optimism that someone was thinking enough about me to want to talk. I don’t have many friends. The ones I spend the most time with are the kind of friends that have issues of their own, and they find a need to take it out on someone. And I let them do it. I was praised by their (they are twins) mother for ‘saving’ her daughters life. They’d moved from a school where they had many friends to one where they didn’t, and they live with their new step-dad. The praise makes me feel good. I like feeling like I helped someone. I stay no matter how I’m treated.

              I’m hungry. I’m so hungry. Tonight was a night where making myself scarce was the solution. There is always a chance of being punished for not joining them for the meal but tonight, I guessed correctly. I can still hear the TV downstairs, meaning my dad was still awake. I have to wait this out. I have some water, but it’s not a lot. I’ll have to drink the well-water from the bathroom sink faucet that’s upstairs. I never heard my sister come back upstairs. She is somewhere downstairs; not a threat thankfully. My mom will probably remain mad at me for the next few days. School would be my only relief for a while.

              I read, my only other escape excluding the internet. I am like my sister in this way, though she would never allow anyone to say I read as much as her. It’s petty but so, so true. I flip through page after page until the house stills.

              I hear my sister ascend the stairs, the second to last step always groans. She goes into the bathroom to get ready for bed. It is the worst wait. She takes forever. She talks to herself, I never hear what she says. I expect she's mapping out a story or imagining the dialogue of her well-loved characters. I don’t find this embarrassing for her; it is admirable the number of plots and storylines she makes. She has a talent in writing. I’m not bitter enough to deny that. I let her write her novel, I hear her in the hallway then I hear her door shut.

              The relief I felt almost soothed my hunger pangs. I creep down the stairs avoiding the step that would give me away. I play a well-practiced but strange sort of hop-scotch to avoid the noisy parts of the living room floor. I make it to the fridge without too much sound. I use my nail to break the magnetic seal without opening the door, I’m salivating when I see the contents of the fridge. They had spaghetti for dinner. I open the Ziploc bag of leftover noodles, shoveling two handfuls of noodles into my mouth before I retreat to the living room.

 The door in the corner of the living room was left open. The glass of the secondary door steaming as the cold met the warmth of the house. I cross the living room and step out the steamed door onto the deck. The faux wood is cold under my bare feet. My breath, a cloud the reflects the soft light of the house. I peek over the edge, below me is the cement walkout to the basement. I curl my toes as my mind wandered. Images flash before me; my head smashed on the ground below, the frozen cement digging into my cheek as my sight begins to fade, watching my last puff of breath rise from the dark into the light once again. How long would it take to lose all the feeling in my body? How long would I lie there awake and unnoticed. Would I feel the sunrise behind me one more time? Or would they notice my absence in the early morning hours, before the winter light appears again?

              My hands twist against the railing. If I did, I could lay there for hours and hours until I died. I could be in pain for quite some time. It would also be a mess; at the impact my head would split and head wounds bleed a lot. But I would not be the one who has to clean it. I would rest, I wouldn’t feel tired again. The cold began to sting my bruised cheek. It’s hard to be angry or to feel unloved if you’re dead. I let my eyes unfocus and my options unveiled before me.

There was more pain, so much more pain. I wouldn’t have a passion, I wouldn’t be able to escape the weight that planted itself on my shoulders and chest. The tears that lie under the swollen bags beneath my eyes. I would contemplate this choice over and over again. I would feel a constant cold-heat at the back of my head, a smoke that surrounds me like a tar molasses that I slowly move through every day.

              My wrists burned from the tight grip I kept on the balustrade. I step over, standing on the tips of my toes to keep my balance. I let my weight rest on my strained hands. The thornbush in my stomach spreads; I feel sick, I brace myself in case I vomit. I feel the gripping cold over my skin. As I’m ill-dressed for the chill. Why is it more of a risk to try to re-enter the house and climb the stairs than it was to release my fingers?

I let go. It is the easier option. I thought the fall would feel longer, I thought I would have a moment to regret my choices that led me here. My consciousness doesn’t make it through the sick, breaking crack that echoes in the quiet winter. I don’t know what happened. I let myself sleep. I was tired after all.

              In another life, I did not jump. I survived this house. I found true love. I found another family. I always try to be kind, I always try to help, and I love to give people gifts. I’m an artist and a writer. I am strong. I am scarred. I fight for the rights of others. I care. And I’m here, I’m here, I’m here.