The other sister

Have you ever dreamt of death? Not death as an abstract concept, but as something you cause. As a consequence of yourself, of your very existence.

I was five years old, to the day, the first time it happened. Addie and I had been playing in the woods near our house, when I got mad at her for drawing a moustache in one of my new dolls. If you've spent any time around children, you'll know there's nothing rawer, more destructive, than the rage of a kid. I kicked her, pushed her. I wanted it to hurt. I wanted to share with her the burning knot of danger i felt growing inside my chest. I didn't want her to crack her head open on a rock. To whine quietly, like a toy running out of batteries, until she stopped moving.

I could still see the sticky red tendrils coming out of her when my mother came upstairs to wake us up. We had pancakes for breakfast, then our birthday meal. We opened our presents. Mom and dad's first, some new colour pencils and a storybook. Then, from grandma, a matching set of new dolls. My little heart sank to my feet when I recognized their faces.

In the afternoon, I refused to go play outside, and so Addie was safe.

The next time it happened, I was seven. We were playing at the school playground, when one of the bigger boys took notice of me and dared me to climb to the top of the swings. I tried to ignore him like my teacher always said, but that only made him bolder. When I finally refused his dare, he called me a chicken, and he pulled my hair until I started crying. To make him stop, Addie volunteered to climb in my stead.

She didn't even bleed that time, not at all. Her eyes simply rolled back, as if her whole self had turned inside out and gotten trapped there. I was trapped, too, in my dream, as they rushed her to the emergency room, as the doctors fought and fought to wake her up, as the sickening beeps of the machines ingrained themselves into my ears. Then, in a flash, she flatlined. And it was over.

I stayed home with a pretend illness that morning, and so Addie was safe.

The nightmares became more frequent after that. I didn't get years of respite between one another anymore, not even months. By the time I turned eighteen, I watched my sister die night after night. Then, day after day, I saved her. I didn't go to the pool on hot summer days, so I could avoid the sight of her bloated body laying motionless at the bottom. I didn't learn to drive, so her face wouldn't split open, right under her left eye, letting her brain leak out for everyone to see. I didn't go camping. I didn't get a dog. I didn't graduate highschool, and I didn't move out with her when she left for college a couple towns over. I didn't date, so she wouldn't get murdered. Didn't have friends that could get her into drugs. I didn't leave my room, which used to be our room, when she came home on the weekends. And, in the end, I didn't ever talk to my sister at all.

I wish I were a better person. I wish I could say that I didn't mind, that her getting to have a life was worth forfeiting mine. I wish I could soldier on with a smile. However, I wasn't blessed with that presence of mind. Unlike Addie, I wasn't blessed at all.

I used to take pride in my role as a guardian angel. Some of the time, at least. But as my years grow heavier with the weight of missed opportunities, the days in which I love her grow fewer in turn. I resent her. How could I not? This sister, this stranger that gets everything I can't and doesn't even know it. This person that surely talks about me with disappointment, without realising every single one of her accomplishments have been built on my back.

It's not her fault. When I wake up sweating, hands still covered in her phantom blood, I remind myself of that. It has become a sort of daily affirmation. And yet, she's had thirty one years. Good ones, too. She graduated with honours, took a gap year straight out of college to travel around Europe, fell in love. Ironically, she's gotten to live, while I haven't. How do you cope with something like that? They don't make support groups for people like me. If i even count as people.

Mom and dad suggested I should go to therapy. I said I'd look into it to pacify them, although I had no intention of doing so. Unfortunately, they caught on, and found me a psychologist themselves. It didn't help. Neither did the medication they found me afterwards. At some point, they got tired of trying.

I'm tired, too. I'm tired of waiting my turn. Addie is getting married today, and I don't think I can handle gifting her any more pieces of me. I don't want to hurt her. I really don't. But is it really hurting her if all I'm doing is not stopping that harm?

I'm thirty one, and it's Addie's wedding day. I'm looking at myself in the mirror, at the simple black dress I bought myself because my twin didn't bother to make me a bridesmaid. I pair it with black earrings and black shoes because, in a way, it's also her funeral I'm attending.

My mother drives me to the venue, chatting excitedly about flowers and menu options. I feel familiar thorns of guilt lodging themselves between my ribs, but this time I'm not backing down. I've seen what will happen. A beautiful ceremony, a radiant bride, a tasteful reception. When she goes to cut the cake, though, she'll look at me. She'll get distracted, tell me she's glad i decided to come. And then, when she's not looking, the priest will trip and fall into her, and she will impale herself with her own knife.

I walk the steps. Take my place. I talk, cry and laugh as if on queue, feeling the ants of anticipation run up and down my body. This is it, my new begging, my time to step into the sun. When it's time for dessert, I force myself not to close my eyes. She smiles. I smile back.

And Addie isn't safe anymore.